Dear all,
This is my last blog entry as a teacher at All Saints' School 
.
Last week we did have a busy and fabulous week starting with our KS1 party, Father Christmas' visit, then mingling and playing with our year 6 buddies and finally our performances at the church carol services. We could not have been any prouder of the children in the nativity. They were all absolute superstars and certainly gave me a memory that I will treasure.
Thank you so much for your generous gifts for Miss Whittleworth and I. We really appreciate the thoughts and sentiments.
I want to wish all of you a very merry Christmas and all the best for a fabulous 2020.
With best wishes
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth 
So my penultimate week is over and I have just one more left with this delightful class. We have been extremely Christmassy this week, with craft, Christmas writing, number bonds, lots of glitter and sequins and finally our ice cream party today. Despite all of the fun, we have still managed to fit in phonics and tricky word practise though! The children have all worn their costumes for next week’s nativity, so we know that everything fits and no bits are missing.
On Tuesday we were thrilled to be able to watch the dancers in their Christmas performance and on Wednesday we walked up to church to watch KS1 in their Christmas performance. It was brilliant and really got us in a festive mood.
The weather has been dire this week, so we haven’t had as many opportunities to play and explore outside as we usually do. The children have been a bit thin on the ground this week too, with coughs and colds and sickness bugs!!! Urrggh! Let’s hope that everyone is better for Christmas.
Next week we have our Christmas party on Monday afternoon. Please send your child in school uniform, but bring their party clothes in their book bag (or a named plastic bag). Don’t forget to provide a healthy treat for their party buffet.
On Tuesday whilst the rest of the whole are at the cinema, we are going to have a dress rehearsal of our nativity. I will take photos and film bits to put on Tapestry, just in case any children are poorly for the actual performance (fingers crossed for better health next week!)
On Wednesday we are going to have a full on craft day, where we will make biodegradable reindeer food amongst other things.
On Thursday morning we will be going up to church again with the whole school to practise the carol service and nativity. If anyone can help walk up, we would be most grateful. Then…it is show time! Thursday evening will be our first proper performance. Please drop your children off at the nursery end of church at 5.45pm, so we can get them changed and ready. You can then take your seats in church for a 6pm start. The first two rows are reserved for Reception families. At the end of the carol service, please come and collect your child from the nursery room. We will only release the children to their adult!
On Friday, it is our last day. We will have sent PE kits and any Christmas craft home earlier in the week. The afternoon service / performance at church is at 1.45pm. We will walk up there and then back down after the service. You are more than welcome to walk with us, but we will release the children as usual from our door into the playground at the end of the day.
Have a lovely weekend and get lots of rest. Let’s get ready to enjoy a brilliant last week of term!
Hi again,
We are well into Christmas mode now with only 2 weeks to go! How did this term go so fast?
This week Miss McConnell has spent lots of time with the children; planning activities and teaching the children. She is really looking forward to January and the children really like her, which makes me feel happy.
We have been practising our Nativity, making Christmas cards, doing festive maths - adding and subtraction and have thought how the shepherds might have felt when the angel came and spoke to them. Some of the children said “scared”, some said “amazed” and some children said that they would feel “happy”...but all of them thought that it would have been strange to see an angel, when they hadn’t seen one before. We have also listened to the story Santa Needs a Wee, which of course the children love!
We have repeated and revised all the phonics sounds that we have learnt so far, but particularly the digraphs (two special friends sitting together making one sound)! We have also learnt the tricky words ‘was’ and ‘saw’, because the children are coming across them in their reading books.
Next week will be full of more Christmas crafts and fun activities to get into the seasonal spirit. We are going to watch the KS1 Christmas performance on Wednesday, before our delicious Christmas lunch and then, after some little phonics and tricky word challenges on Thursday, we will indulge in ice cream at the ice cream party with our buddies on Friday.
We will also be practising some more ‘tricky words’, blending words from our phonics and learning number bonds to 10.
HOMEWORK - Keep hold of your child’s homework book now until the New Year.
Continue to:
· Read - if the children come across an unfamiliar or complicated word then please help them and explain that if they try to use the picture to help them they can sometimes work it out just from the beginning sounds. The more they read these words, the more they remember them. A lot of words are not phonetic!
· Practise counting and number recognition. Go on Mathletics if you can to gain confidence and speed in maths.
· Look for the angels in the shops in Marple (See enclosed sheet - bring the sheet back to school, when you have
completed it).
· Practise their words for our Nativity (in the whole school Carol Service).
Thanks and have an amazing weekend.
Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Miss McConnell
PS: I will write in the blog next week, but I will not send a paper copy of this home, which is why I want you to keep hold of the books. I want everyone to have a lovely relaxing Christmas. The children have worked so hard this term that they deserve a break, so that they are refreshed and ready to go in January.
Hello
This week we have been joined by Miss McConnell. The children have taken to her really well, which is excellent news.
As a class we have been looking at how to make shadows using torches. We have seen how to make them bigger and smaller . We made our own puppets and shadow puppet theatres.
Once again we concentrated on developing fine motor skills with threading, playdough, pom poms and tweezers and balancing jewels on top of golf tees.
We have looked at teen numbers - how they are made of a group of ten with extra ones.
We looked at the nativity story again and got involved in lots of nativity based activities.
We have sequenced the story ourselves, coloured in nativity pictures and labelled the characters in the nativity. We have practised counting with rolling the dice and playing a nativity version of ‘Beetle Drive’. This has involved lots of lovely turn taking and number matching. In maths we have also been adding two numbers together, by throwing two dice and adding the numbers or adding the two sides of a domino together. The children understand this concept well now, so we will be working on subtraction next week. We spent Wednesday afternoon playing with 2D shapes and had a go at making these with marshmallows and cocktail sticks.
Outside the children have been building dens, sweeping up leaves, making swings and playing small world games with the animals, cars and dinos. It hasn’t been great weather, but we tried to get out as much as we could.
Miss McConnell has been listening to the children read and generally getting to know them, which everyone has really enjoyed.
Phonics this week has included looking at, reading and writing tricky words, as well as blending the learnt sounds into words.
We have been singing songs from our nativity and also have had a go at saying the speaking parts. We are all very impressed by the children’s fabulous clear voices.
Hopefully we will see you on Saturday at the Christmas Fair, which is always a lovely, festive treat!
Next week we will be in full on Christmas mode. Lots of sparkly fun and learning for the next 3 weeks!!!
HOMEWORK
Thank you for your support and encouragement with the ’Full Circle’ game and also all the other uploads onto Tapestry. We have loved looking at them. This week please can you help your children practise their lines for the Nativity (I have put these in your child's homework book if they have them) and also concentrate on the ice cream targets in your homework book. Counting forwards and backwards, recognising numerals, reading the set 1 sounds and blending them into words are the key areas.
We have costumes all sorted for the Nativity, so you don’t need to think about that.
Thanks and have a great weekend
Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Miss McConnell
PS: Don't forget there is another opportunity to have a chat to Miss McConnell next Tuesday evening if you haven't had the chance to speak to her yet.
Hello again,
This week we have based our learning on the story of The Gruffalo. We have written about characters in the story, labelled pictures, written ingredients for Gruffalo crumble and measured Gruffalo footprints.
We have also looked at where the snake, fox and owl live and have learnt more about animal habitats. The children have explored animal habitats in lots of different ways – sorting and categorizing, labelling and drawing different animals in certain habitats.
We also practised lots of fine motor activities and phonics games to consolidate our learning of the set 1 sounds. This has included tricky word hunts outside and word building activities inside.
Because we have started practising for our performance in the carol service, the children have been ‘playing’ at the nativity. They have been dressing up as angels, shepherds, Mary and Joseph and have been acting out the story that we have learnt.
Our word of the week has been ‘fewer’, so we have been finding one fewer than a given number. This has involved ‘taking away’ and ‘subtracting’. There have been lots of practical activities using numicon, tens frames and pegs.
The children have loved using the sweeping brush to sweep up the autumn leaves. They have enjoyed this activity so much that we have had to use the timer, so that more children can take a turn.
We have played lots of phonics, tricky word and number bonds to 6 games on the IWB, so that previously learnt skills can be practised. Many children also completed a sheet with part, part, whole models to find number pairs to 6.
We have explored textures of substances, particularly those which change when water is added. Lots of fun investigation took place with cornflour ‘gloop’ along with ice, wet sand and soil.
Thank you so much for your donations today for the Christmas fair next week.
Homework:
Once again thank you for all the hard work on the sharing homework. I loved seeing the posts on Tapestry and looking at all the work in your books.
This week we are continuing with the blending and word building work we have been doing in class with a game ‘Full Circle’. You have all been given a selection of letters, which you can make a number of different words with. Follow my video on Tapestry to create the words. Hopefully you will have fun (and have a laugh at the video).
Please try to encourage all your children to try and fasten their own coats. Most children are now able to do this, so it would be amazing if they could all zip up, or button their own coats. The children are so proud of themselves when they can do this.
Don’t forget that Miss McConnell (my replacement teacher) is in from Monday for the next two weeks. Feel free to drop in to meet her on Monday afternoon, or Friday morning to say hello and have an informal chat.
I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Dear everyone
Another busy week has flown by! This week was anti-bullying week, so we have been reading the three little pigs and discussing unsociable behaviour through that story.
On Monday it was Armistice day, so we had 2 minute’s silence at 11:00. The children were remarkably silent, so very well done to them. We also talked about the soldiers, who fought in the first world war and how some of them were very brave, but were killed whilst they were in battle. I showed the children the Cbeebies animated film, which depicts the idea of the war very simply. After that we painted pictures of the battlefields with poppies growing amongst the crosses and barbed wire. The children used charcoal, water colour paints and thick poster paint. I was extremely impressed by their artistic skills.
On Monday afternoon we had the walk and Boccia games with the children and their grandparents. The event was very successful, despite it raining (yet again). It was great that so many grandparents were able to come and join us.
During the rest of the week in phonics we have learnt new digraphs: ee, oo, ng and nk and also tricky words: so and be. We have written these in our phonics books and also had a fun competition today trying to remember all the phonics that we have learnt so far.
The children have been writing and drawing all week. We had some interesting phonetic spellings, which some of you will see in your child’s books in due course!! They were writing about what the wolf might say to the pigs and also what the pigs might say to the wolf.
In maths we were sharing out satsumas amongst the three pigs. There was great discussion about how to make it fair. We also had a go at designing a house for the three little pigs and then actually built our own straw, stick and brick houses which a toy pig could fit inside. The children predicted which houses would collapse when the ‘big, bad hair drier’ blew on them. Everyone was so excited that Mrs Manning actually came out of her room to see what all the fuss was about.
We finished off our week with a fab ‘Children in Need’ focused day. We decorated cakes like Pudsey Bear and also completed lots of colouring and maths challenges based on Pudsey. We talked about who the ‘children in need’ were too. The children all agreed that these less fortunate children should get our charitable donations to make their lives a little bit better; whether they are poorly children, or children who don’t have families, homes, or money for toys or food.
Thank you so much for your donations today for our ‘no parking’ figures, which will help to ease the traffic problem around school. You will see them on the road outside school every morning and every afternoon from now on.
Homework:
Thank you so much for your hard work with the shapes around the home sheet last week. Your homework activity this week follows on from our learning about sharing. There is a worksheet to complete about sharing things amongst the three little pigs.
I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello again,
It was so great to catch up with you last week and this week. Thanks so much for coming along to the parents’ meetings (I do know there are a couple of people still left to see).
This week we have concentrated on Bonfire Night, which involved lots of colourful pictures and creations using paint, glitter and oil pastel. The children have been labelling their pictures using the phonics that they have learnt so far.
We have been finding 1 more than a number and also touched on exploring pairs that make 10. The children have been pretending to be teachers, using the phonics cards with one another and many of the children have been writing lists of everyone’s name on pieces of paper.
In PE we have been negotiating space and pretending to move like circus characters. We have been putting moves together to a beat of 8.
In RE we talked about baby Jesus being born and how the wise men and shepherds brought him gifts. The children then explained what gift they would give to a new born baby. We talked about certain gifts being more suitable for different aged people.
We will be talking more and more about the nativity story, because we will performing a nativity as part of the whole school carol service. This is absolutely adorable and a lovely way to finish for Christmas.
Some of the children started exploring how to make shadow puppets using their hands and the torches. If you want to have a go at making some hand shadow characters at home, then please take some photos and upload them to Tapestry.
Because the weather was so appalling on Thursday we didn’t have an ’outdoor classroom day’, it was more like ‘stay inside the classroom all day’! We do spend a lot of time outside usually in Reception and we have got our walk next Monday to look forward to (Lets hope it stops raining for that!) Please bring wellies, so that your feet do not get caked in mud.
In Maths we have also been creating shape pictures and talking about the different 2D shapes that we can find around school. I have attached a shape hunt sheet to complete at home this weekend.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been introduced to the digraphs
(two letters sitting next to each other making one sound):
sh, th, ch and oo. They also practised two new tricky words ‘my’ ‘by’
Please continue to listen to your child read. If they can ‘sound out’ a word in their head and just say the word then praise and encourage them...it makes reading more fluent and comprehension / understanding of the story much better. If they prefer to sound out and blend at the end, then this is absolutely fine too. If they can’t blend either, then it is fine for you to sound out for them, so that they can blend the word themselves. They will do it all in good time and are all doing amazingly well with reading and writing, considering they have only been at school for 2 months. I am super proud of them!
Have a great weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
I hope that everyone had a lovely half term holiday. I have enjoyed looking at pictures on Tapestry of some of the adventures that you had. The children have come back into class eager to learn and raring to go, which is wonderful.
This week we have had lots of fun with dragons, bones, squidgy eyes and bubbling cauldrons...which led into the story “The Trouble with Dragons”. This story is all about how we can look after our planet, which fits in beautifully with our topic “Global Neighbours”.
In Maths we have continued to count to 20 - forwards and backwards and we have looked again at making number bonds to 5 and 6.
We also heard the story about Rama and Sita and how the Hindu Festival 'Diwali' is celebrated. The children drew and painted some beautiful Rangoli patterns.
We have started a new topic in RE, which is all about Christmas. This has started with the subject of “Special News”, thinking about Angel Gabriel telling Mary that she was going to have a baby. As a class we talked about some special news that we have had. Aoife has had very special news this week with the birth of her baby sister. Congratulations to Aoife and her family! The children acted out being Mary and the angel to see how getting that special news might feel.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been introduced to the graphemes:
v, z, x
They also continued to practise the tricky words we have learnt so far.
Please continue to play on mathletics and practise reading at home. If you go to a bonfire display then show me some pictures on Tapestry please.
If you do go to a bonfire or firework display this weekend please stay safe, but have a great time. We will be learning all about Guy Fawkes next week.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
Thanks for everyone’s hard work with the numicon homework. You are superstars! Thanks also for the responses about the parents’ afternoons / evenings. I had had a look at everyone’s preferred times and tried to give you a time as near as I could. I had a couple of forms with a time, but no name, so if you have not had a time confirmed yet, but you handed your slip in that is why. One said “after 4.30 please” and one said “6.30 dad”. I’ll speak to you when we get back to school about it - we can sort a mutually convenient time out.
Church week has been a wonderful opportunity to immerse ourselves in ‘Gods Colourful World’. The activities up at church were varied and interesting - craft, singing, investigating coloured stones and rocks, planting seeds and listening to stories. The children just found it exciting to go on a walk up and down to church to be honest!
Back in class this week in class we have been learning about the numbers which go together to make 6. These are called number pairs, or number bonds if there are two numbers which add together to make another number. Some children even found more combinations, like 2+1+3 = 6.
We have been singing long to a little Red Hen song and also had fun playing lots of different instruments to a song called ‘Noises in the night’. We have been re-telling the Little Red Hen story again and again too, so have become really fluent at telling a story now.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been learning:
f, j, w, y
I have stuck the children’s ice cream targets in their homework books for you to have a look at. These are targets which your child should be able to achieve by Christmas. Not everyone’s targets are the same...they have been tailored to your child’s own abilities.
Thanks for everyone’s participation and help with the ’Colour Run’ today. The weather wasn’t kind, but it didn’t stop us having an absolute ball! What’s not to like about mud and colour? It was all thanks to Mrs Eva in year 3 and Sarah Holton from All Saints’ Church, who made the whole of church week AMAZING! I must say though, I was thankful of a warm shower when I got in.
Thanks for everything you do to help and support your little ones at home. I am so grateful of our super ‘home school’ partnership. The children have already learnt so much...it has been a very successful half term. I’d like to wish you a very happy half term holiday (if anyone is off work / going away on holiday). Have fun and hopefully the children will have a bit of a rest before the crazy Christmas term!
Have a fab week
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone
Thank you everyone for your responses about your child’s abilities with ‘technology’. It is amazing what our 4 and 5 year olds can do with devices, apps and other technology. Thanks you also for your comments and posts in Tapestry. I love sharing the children's learning with you and seeing what your children do in their own environment too. It creates a much more holistic picture of their ability. If you haven't yet activated your account to create a password on Tapestry please do so. I have put lots of photos and observations of your children, which I really want you to see.
This week we have been reading the book about The Little Red Hen. We have read the story, re-told the story, acted out the story and also sung, danced and played musical instruments based on the story. On Friday we made our own bread (just like the little red hen). This was lots of fun...like playdough, but gooeyer!
We have been exploring number; looking at numerals to 10 and the corresponding number of objects. We count all the time and sequence / order numerals regularly.
We have also continued our learning about being kind and helpful to people through the RE story, ‘Jesus heals the blind man’. The children enjoyed the story and then reflected on something that they could do to be kind to others.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been introduced to the
graphemes: r, k, h, b
& have practised the tricky words: ‘to’, ‘no’, ’go’, ‘the’, ‘I’, we, ‘he’, ‘she’
Please continue to practise reading the graphemes we have learnt by reading, writing and making words up with them. In writing the hardest part for the children is moving their pen in an anticlockwise direction! It is something which is really tricky for a lot of children, but so very important for when they start to join their handwriting up. It is therefore better to learn the right way right from the start.
I have also put a maths sheet in, which follows on from what we have been doing this week. Counting the holes in the numicon / adding two pieces of numicon together and writing the total number. Numerals are also difficult to form correctly. I have written out a number line to 10 for the children, then they can see what the numerals should look like.
Next week we will have a fun filled week, as it is church week - finishing with the colour run in the field on Friday afternoon.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello again,
This week the children have loved working on activities based around the story of Supertato, which has included lots of fine motor, phonics, counting and number recognition activities, as well as writing and drawing.
We nearly had another ‘real life’ superhero visitor in school - John the lollipop man, but he was poorly, so it was Miss Whittleworth who dressed in his coat and hat and taught us all about safety on the road.
There have been lots of families looking around school and the children are always well behaved with our visitors, which shows me that they are learning about appropriate behaviour and manners, which is good to see.
I have been taking the children out in groups of six to ride the balance bikes this week, but will be continuing this over the coming weeks and months if your child hasn’t yet had a turn. Some children are confident bike riders already, so they will just be able to have a bit of fun on the bikes. I will give the less confident children lots of coordination, balance and agility activities and exercises, to help them to ride a balance bike.
It has also been good to see the children being really grown up, coming into the classroom by themselves. This shows that they are gaining confidence and settling in to the routine now.
For the next two weeks we will be thinking about ‘Harvest’ and basing our learning and activities on the story of The Little Red Hen. This story has a moral, about sharing, kindness and having a go, which links to our school topic ‘Global Community’. The children will be learning how to re-tell the story off by heart, through Talk for Writing and they will learn how to change it to make their own story. I will send a story map home, so that you can practise the story at home with your child.
In the final week before half term it is church week, where we all take part in activities at All Saints’ Church on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9.30 - 11. We will be walking to All Saints’ Church on each of those mornings, so if you are free to help with the walk, either up to church for 9.30, or back from church at 11, then please let us know, as we would be most grateful.
Thanks again for all your support with learning at home. The children are enjoying talking about their home learning especially when we share the pictures on Tapestry. Keep encouraging your child to read individual sounds and CVC words and to practise writing the sounds we have learnt. Do not be limited by paper and pens…enjoy exploring mark making in shaving foam, steam and cornflour gloop to name but a few.
HOMEWORK
This weekend please could you share in the home school books, or on ‘Tapestry’ anything that your child can do which involves technology? This could be using remote controls, playing games on an iPad or tablet, using games consoles, or scanning shopping at the supermarket till…anything. This is an area of learning that we don’t see evidence of much in school, but we know that in this day and age most children are exposed to technology regularly at home. Your comments will form part of our assessment.
Have another lovely weekend.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello again,
It is the end of another busy week. Your children have worked so hard this week. We have been learning about ‘Everyday Heroes’, which have included thinking about all the people who help us in the community and also how we ourselves can be super heroes. We need kindness and love for other people, which includes sharing, helping and listening to others. We have had a visit from a paramedic, a GP doctor and a fireman.
I have also been very proud when I have seen how quickly the children are picking up their phonics sounds, as well as learning how to behave in the classroom. Other members of staff through the school have noticed and commented on how quickly the children are learning, particularly in phonics, so that is lovely to hear. This week we have learnt i, n, p, g and o. I also introduced the children to the tricky words “I” and “the”.
One area we need to focus on is teaching the children to have a bit more respect for the toys and resources though. Quite a lot of things have been broken in the past couple of weeks and the children just say "Oh well it's ok we can get a new one." I am trying to teach them that we have to look after things, because we can't replace broken toys; they cost too much money. Please can you help us by reiterating this at home. Thanks. 
In maths we have been learning 'one more' than a number. We also looked at the number 5 and found out the number pairs which make 5.
On Thursday it was ‘International Languages’ day, so we had a visit from Helena, who is from Bangladesh and Linda, who knows a lot of Spanish. We learnt some Bengali and Spanish words and also tasted food from Spain and Bangladesh. Yummy!
Next week we are continuing looking at super heroes in our community, which is part of the overall Global Communities theme and we will be focusing on lots of opportunities for mark making and strengthening those finger muscles with fine motor activities. Thank you so much for all the support you are giving your children with home activities and reading. The books may, or may not have text in them, but enjoying the pictures and talking about them are the most important thing at this stage. Please don’t worry if your child cannot read words yet. Picking out the odd letter that they have learnt and trying to blend the sounds that you sound out for them is all that is required for now. I have put some simple words that the children should be able to have a go at reading in their homework book. Please let us know how they get on and share any comments in the homework book, or on Tapestry. Please make sure that the reading books and reading records are in the children’s book bag every day.
I am also attaching a login for Mathletics in the front of your child’s reading record. All the children in the school have a login, so if your child would like to have a try at some maths games on a laptop, tablet or iPad, then they can. There are prizes given out in assembly, when children reach bronze, silver or gold level. Good luck and enjoy.
HOMEWORK
As previously mentioned, please could you practise reading the words attached in the homework book and also try to logon to Mathletics and try one of the simple games.
Thank you so much
Have a wonderful weekend whatever you do.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone,
Another busy week has passed very quickly. The children have settled into a routine now and we are amazed at how well they are sitting on the carpet, putting on their own coats and getting their own lunches. What super stars!
We are continuing to teach the basic rules and routines, but have also been introducing counting activities, Talk for Writing and phonics using the ‘Rainbow Fish’ story as inspiration.
In phonics we have been concentrating on ‘Fred Talk’, rhyming and sounds in the environment, as well as introducing our first sounds - m, a, s, d and t.
In RE we talked about friendship, using the story ‘Rainbow Fish’ to help the children understand what qualities make a good friend. The children said that sharing their toys with friends makes them feel “happy” and even “wonderful”, which was lovely to hear.
Today, much to the children's excitement, we even had a letter left for us from Trixi, our resident playground fairy.
Thank you so much for helping your child with rhyming.. We really enjoyed looking at the homework and reading your ’silly soup’ rhyming ingredients.
HOME ACTIVITY
I recommend that over the weekend you give your child lots of opportunities to ‘mark make’, whether it is in their book, on a blackboard, outside with paintbrushes and water. Encourage them to hold their pen, paintbrush, crayon or chalk correctly. Play lots of finger gym type exercises where they stretch and clench their fingers. Any practise will help. You could practise the letter sounds learnt this week, which are
m a s d t
Use our RWI rhymes for correct formation. I attach a sheet which the children can use if they want to help them with formation, but you could take photos of them doing bigger scale mark making and upload them onto ‘Tapestry’.
If you haven’t yet activated your Tapestry account, please check emails for your activation instructions. I have set most of you up. If there is a problem please let me know.
Please also have a look at your child’s reading book together. Please make a comment in the reading record, no matter how brief. We aim to change the books every week. Please have the reading book and reading record/ diary in their bags every day, so that we can look at it together whenever we have the opportunity.
Next week is all about “Super Heroes” in the community, so if any of you are nurses, doctors, police men or women etc and are possibly available any day to talk to the children, please let me know.
All in all it has been a brilliant week. It is great to see friendships developing and confidence growing.
Thank you for all your support and thank you to everyone who came to the meetings on Monday afternoon / evening. I hope that you found it useful. Happy birthday to Sofia for tomorrow - lets hope the sun shines. Enjoy Marple Food and drink festival if you go.
Have a great weekend.
Mrs. Preece and Miss Whittleworth
It is the end of our first full week in Reception. It has been fabulous, but very busy and I’m sure your children will all sleep very well this weekend. All week we have been exploring the indoor and outdoor classroom resources. The children have
particularly enjoyed the bikes outside, as well as the mud kitchen! They have also played with the small cars outside on the ramps.
I introduced the magic story box on Monday to the children and they discovered poor Stick Man in there. He was lost and was looking for his family tree. The children helped make ‘help’ signs, a tree for him to live in and also made members of his family out of real sticks, wire and pipe cleaners.
The children have taken part in PE twice this week, with Mr A one day and me on Thursday. We really threw the
children in at the deep end on Thursday by encouraging them to get changed into their PE kits, but they rose to the
challenge. What super stars. The area that they need to practise is buttoning up shirts and making sure that they turn their clothes the right way (not inside out) before they put them back on. If you could help them practise this at home, then that would be fab please.
We have been encouraging lots of independence eg: putting on coats, going to the toilet and tidying up. We have also
reiterated our classroom rules, which are good sitting, good looking and good listening.
In RE we have been talking about special people, so this week we talked about people in our family. We shared the photos from home, which many people kindly sent in and the children talked about their unique families during circle time. We discussed how all families are different!
Before we move into formal phonics teaching (which I will talk about on Monday evening) we are concentrating on phase 1 phonics, which is all about listening to sounds, rhyming, initial sounds and alliteration. This involves lots of listening games, initial sound repetition ie: J-J-J-Jake, rhyming and robot talk ie: please can I have the b-a-g?
This weekend, in your home/school book, please can you play rhyming games with your child. We use the “Slug in the Jug” game to play Silly Soup, where we add rhyming words together into a bowl to mix a silly soup. An example is “I’m going to make a silly soup, I’m making soup that’s silly, I’m going to cook it in the fridge, to make it nice and chilly...In goes… a fox… a box… some socks… (all rhyming items). Please could you come up with some rhymes together with your child. You could write out the words that they say, or they could draw or stick on pictures.
Please return your books by Wednesday. We will try and share these home/ school books in circle time next week, so that the children will have the opportunity to talk about their learning at home.
Thank you.
I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on Monday’s meeting. The meeting is a chance for me to share a lot of important information about the way that I will be teaching phonics, reading, handwriting and maths and how you can help at home. It will last about 45 minutes. There will be chance for you to ask any questions about the Tapestry learning journey and any other queries you may have.
Have a great weekend...maybe some of you will see the famous bike tour pass through Marple.
Best Wishes
Mrs. Preece and Miss Whittleworth
PS: We will listen to all your children read next week and change their books accordingly.
If they need more than 1 book, we’ll give them more.
Welcome everyone
What a great start to school your little ones have had. They were so grown up on their first 3 days last week and settled in so well. I am so excited to see the children again tomorrow for their first full day at All Saints’ Primary School.
Miss Whittleworth and I have already been taking lots of photos and uploading observations onto Tapestry. I need everyone’s consent for Tapestry, so that I can make your children’s accounts live and then you can start to see all of their learning. I will talk about this a little bit more when I see you next Monday at the Reception class information evening.
Over the next week we will be using the story ‘Stick Man’ as a starting point to explore and talk about different kinds of families and adventures. We will be playing lots of phonics games including rhyming and alliteration. There will be maths songs and activities, as well as RE, PE and art. This coming week I hope to spend quite a lot of time exploring our outside area, including the field.
I look forward to seeing you next Monday afternoon, or evening, when I will be giving out reading books and explaining how we teach phonics, reading, writing and maths in Reception.
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth 
Hello there,
Well we got to the end of our penultimate week and are now about to embark on the last week in Reception! 
Although it is getting to the end of the year, the children still had a very busy week. We had short carpet phonics sessions, with phonic competitions between 2 groups and writing tricky words on whiteboards. We also played phonic loop game, which involves the children reading a sound off their card and another child will see if they have the card with a word containing that sound, eg:
If I say the sound ‘oo’, then the child who has a card with a word containing that sound will say “I have moon.” They will then turn over their card and on the other side there will be a sound, so they will say “Who has ee?” Another child will then say “I have sheep, who has ow?” Someone else will say “I have blow, who has ar?” and it will continue until everyone has read their card.
The children love this game. We also play it with maths addition and subtraction number sentences, eg:
I have 12, who has double 3?
I have 6, who has 10 – 1?
I have 9, who has 3+1?... etc
The children have been busy making eco bricks out of bits of plastic, they have been labelling Old Macdonald pictures, creating ‘tap a shape’ pictures, playing phonics bingo, drawing, writing, making dens, mark making on big boxes. They have been playing maths games on the IWB and playing outside in the sand and water.
Some of the children have been helping to wash and sort the toys and the spare clothes. They have spent some time with Mrs Mylrea and have really enjoyed playing and chatting to our lovely year 10 student, Miss Farndell.
We also had our highlight, which was our trip to Smithill’s Farm. Thankfully, despite the rain, we managed to stay dry all day. It was a great day, with lots of well organised activities. Thank you to all the parents who came along and helped on the day. I really appreciate it.
This coming week we will have an ice cream party with our buddies, this is to celebrate the children achieving their targets during the last term. On Wednesday afternoon we will also go to the year 6 leavers service at All Saints’ Church. (If anyone can help walk up then please let us know.) We will continue to practise writing and phonics every day and I will be setting some writing and maths challenges to complete inside and outside. We will have lots of music to practise for the talent show on Friday and hopefully the weather is going to be nice, so we will have fun with the water wall.
On Tuesday we are sending home the learning journey books. Please could you bring in a plastic bag to put them in.
Thanks so much for lending us your children to nurture and care for this year. It has been AMAZING. They are such superstars and deserve a fantastic holiday, before their next adventure in year 1.
All our best
Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Hammond 
Hi again,
Another week has passed in the blink of an eye. We now only have two more weeks of Reception, which is very sad, but will be filled with lots of brilliant things. Your children are so ready for year 1. They all stood up as star writers this morning, because they have been working so hard with their phonics, tricky words and handwriting. This week we have learnt about where some of our food comes from - milk, eggs, bread, cheese etc. The children have been writing some facts and also working out some maths problems based on food too. Today we made our own bread, which was just like playing with playdough. It was fun and very messy.
I am not going to give anymore homework, so you can keep the homework book now. Thank you for all your support with this throughout the year. You have been amazing parents! Please keep working on phonics, tricky words, writing, number bonds, adding and subtracting over the summer, but also enjoy some of the activities enclosed.
Next Thursday is our trip to the farm. I will give you any extra details about the trip early next week, or via Tapestry.
Have a brilliant weekend.
Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Hammond
Hi again,
What a fabulous day we have had! A picnic, circus skills and the Summer Fair all in one day. Also this week has been crazy with our ’proper’ transition morning with Mrs Manning and Mrs Mylrea, as well as lots of sweetie based activities all week with Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Hammond.
Designing a Hansel and Gretel house Problem solving by counting and sharing sweets and biscuits
We have designed our own sweetie houses, counted and shared sweets and biscuits and painted gingerbread houses in the style of the artist Hundertwasser. We have been very creative, because we also made a large collaborative collage inspired by Gustav Klimt.
Paintings inspired by Hundertwasser Collage inspired by Gustav Klimt
Churches for RE - the children said that the windowes told a story about Jesus, there were towers and crosses on churches and that in a church there was a special bath which the vicar dips his finger in to put on the baby's head.
We have also created, built and painted churches and stained glass windows as part of the Christian church unit in RE and we have written a reflection of our year in Reception for our reports. We also played a game called maths loop, where we each had a card with a number on it and on the other side was a calculation. We started with one child who read out the number on their card and then asked who had the answer to the sum on the other side. ie: “I have 12, who has 4 + 4?” Then the child who has 8 would say “I have 8, who has...” The children enjoyed this and didn’t realise that they were actually working out simple sums as they were playing it. Games like this for maths, or English are so great to reinforce and embed learning. Your children learn without realising that they are working. I have spoken to most of you this week, which has been really good. I have told many of you that these sorts of activities will help your children remember the facts that they have learnt this year. Writing lists, cards and labels are other good ideas to keep children writing. Reading comics, or signs when you are out and about are an alternative to reading books too.
Thanks for all the maths homework last week. I enjoyed seeing your number sentences, but also seeing the practical maths on Tapestry too. The children LOVE sharing their pictures and videos!!!
Homework - Writing
Can you write a list of your favourite foods?
Extra Challenge:
Can you have a go at reading and following a recipe to cook some of these delicious foods too? Show me and your friends some of your cooking on Tapestry.
PS: I am completing a walk for Parkisnson’s charity this weekend. My dad sadly suffered with this horrible disease for many years. I am raising money if anyone feels like they want to donate to this charity, but please, please do not feel obliged. I will post some pictures on Tapestry after the walk. Thanks
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jane-preece
Have a great weekend
From Mrs Preece and the Reception team
Hello everyone,
This week the children have spent some time with Mrs Manning, one of the year 1 teachers and also Mrs Noble, the year 2 teacher, who came in to spend a morning with us. Both of the teachers said how amazing the children were. They said their behaviour was fantastic and also their attitude to learning too. I am like a proud mum!
We have continued our learning about the Enormous Turnip this week too, chopping up vegetables (including turnips) to make into a delicious soup, which everyone tasted. The children also have been working on their counting back and subtraction skills, as well as practising ‘tricky words’ and reading. Last week I asked them if they had heard the story of Hansel and Gretel and only a small number of children had, so we listened to the story and then they created some pictures, maths and writing based on the story. We have had chance to play out in our outside area, because the weather has been so much better than it has been and the children got the chance to ride the balance bikes again. On Friday some children came from All Saints’ nursery, so the children made them feel very welcome in our school.
Because we have been using sweets to count, share and subtract, here is a maths puzzle for you to practise at home
Homework Numbers
You have 12 sweets. Can you write some number sentences about how you could make the number 12?
ie: 6 + 6 = 12 
11 + 1 = 12
15 – 3 = 12
12 – 0 = 12
4 + 2 + 3 + 3 = 12
How many additions and subtractions can you make? Are there more additions or more subtractions?
Extra Challenge:
Can you sort the 12 sweets into equal groups? Draw a picture, or post a photo on Tapestry to show the groups that you have shared the twelve sweets into.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Hi everyone,
Well last week was another really busy week in Reception.
I listened to all of the children read in a phonics assessment, which I am posting on Tapestry. Many children have made fantastic progress and can now read everything that we have learnt. Their next step is to gain fluency in their reading. For those children who are still struggling with digraphs (two letters sitting together making one sound, like ‘ar’ and ‘ay’) please keep going over these with your child, until they just know them. Repetition is key.
We also had opportunities to complete various challenges – a maths challenge and a writing challenge. In maths the children competed against each other to complete the hundred square. The quickest teams won. In writing the children wrote their own story based on the story of the enormous turnip. Rudi became our star writer, because of his amazing story about an enormous strawberry.
We have been practising how to count backwards, as this is the area that all of the children need to get better at. This is something that you could easily practise at home – counting down from 20…or even from random teen numbers, which makes it a little bit more challenging. Asking children simple subtraction questions is good practise too. When I gave questions like “What is 10 take away 3?” some children actually commented that they knew the answer was 7, because they know their number bonds to 10. This is the reason that knowing number bonds are so important. Please help your child by continuing to practise this at home.
On Tuesday the children met one of their year 1 teachers, Mrs Manning. She spent an hour with the class, getting to know them. If your child was one of the children, who I chose to help with the new nursery children, then they will spend time with Mrs Manning on Wednesday, when we have another transition morning. On Friday Mrs Mylrae, the other year 1 teacher also introduced herself to the class.
Of course the highlight of our week was our class assembly on Friday. Thank you so much for coming along to watch, as we know this can be challenging with work pressures. It is the first time we have had this many parents watching the class assembly. I am sure you will agree your children were absolute stars. They made me super proud with their speaking, singing and their acting. It was perfect!
I want you all to know that whether your children have met all of the early learning goals or not at this point, they have all put in so much effort and enthusiasm and have displayed such wonderful characteristics of effective learning. They are an amazing bunch of children and I am very lucky to have been their teacher.
Next week we will be learning the story of Hansel & Gretel, so our learning will be based on this traditional tale.
Have a lovely sunny Sunday.
Best Wishes Mrs Preece and the Reception team.
Dear all,
Welcome back everyone. I hope that you all had a brilliant two week holiday whatever you got up to. All the children were certainly keen to tell me about their various adventures. We are now in our final half term of Reception, which is exciting and sad (well sad for me anyway) all at the same time. It is a very busy half term, with lots of transition activities, so that your child will be prepared for year 1. I have been visiting some of the children who will be joining me in Reception next year, so I have been in and out quite a lot this week. The children have still been working ever so hard though, with a lot of practise of phonics and tricky words. Some children also looked at the split digraph a-e too. In maths we have been going over all the number calculations and activities that we have learnt throughout the year. It might have felt like the children weren’t learning anything new, but it is repetition that really helps them remember facts, so we go over counting, doubling, halving, adding and subtraction time and time again.
Other activities this week have included learning about ‘Special Places’ in RE. Today we learnt about different homes around the world. The children had a great afternoon creating different houses. There was a fantastic buzz in the classroom, with everyone engaged and busy.
I asked each of the children to write a postcard about what they did during the holidays. It didn’t matter about whether they went away or not, it was just to see if they could remember and write about anything. I’m impressed that no-one seems to have forgotten any of their previously learnt skills over the holiday.
The children have made cards for their dads, or for a special man in their lives, for Father's Day on Sunday. They also made special medals for them, which have a tasty biscuit inside. Enjoy!
We have listened to each of the children read individually this week and we have been starting to practise singing and dancing for our class assembly, which is next Friday morning. We are performing the story of The Enormous Turnip, so I have enclosed your child’s part and words that they need to learn this weekend please. Some children will be the actors, so they will be dressed as a character from the story. We have found lots of costumes, but if you have anything at home that could enhance the look then that would be great. Most of the children are narrators and will therefore be wearing uniform for the assembly. Next week Mrs Manning.is going to spend some time with the class whilst I have my new class for their first ‘stay and play’ session on Tuesday. There will also be another spelling competition next Friday with some of the words that they learnt last half term, so any practise with these would be greatly appreciated.
HOMEWORK
Please can you help your child memorise their words for the assembly. They will be practising at school too, but any help would be appreciated.
Thanks and have another relaxing weekend. Enjoy Marple Carnival if you get to go. Unfortunately I can't be there this year, but it is always a great day out. I'm sorry that I will be missing it.
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece and the Reception Team
* NB: I have sent home a letter from ‘Young Writers’. A while ago we sent off some riddles to what we thought was a competition. It isn’t! All the riddles are being published in a book, which you are welcome to buy, but please do not feel obliged to. All the children did it, so your child isn’t ‘the chosen one’ like it implies. I will give the children there certificate next week (I forgot today I'm afraid) and if you want to buy the book, it would be a nice keep sake. Thanks. Mrs Preece
Dear everyone,
I am so sorry that this is a couple of days late, but 'happy half term' to you all.
What a brilliant and energetic last week of half term it has been! We've been really active and have experienced a wide variety of different sports: Scootfit, Football, Yoga, Dance, Rugby, Tennis and many, many more. Thank you to everyone who came along and suppoted us on sports day - I'm sure you'll agree it was great fun...and best of all the sun shone...all week. Well done to purple team who were the winners, but also to all the children for amazing participation!
As well as sport, the children have been writing crime reports about naughty Goldilocks, who came into our classroom and not only broke Baby Bear's chair, but also ate all his porridge. On Wednesday we had the film crew from Bloomsbury Early Years coming in to film our learning through play, so that they can show it on their website. As soon as I get the link I will share it with you (although I don't know whether I can watch myself back...)! We have practised our number bonds, teen numbers, one more, one less, phonics and tricky words. I was utterly blown away by the children's spellings on Friday. Amazing is all I can say!
Please have a fantastic holiday everyone. Feel free to share any adventures or learning on Tapestry and, if nothing else, please keep reading!
Thank you and see you in two weeks.
Mrs Preece and the Reception team
Hello everyone,
It has been a very exciting week this week. We have had beautiful weather, so have been able to take our learning outdoors for a lot of the time, but also on Tuesday we had our fabulous trip on the canal barge.
This week we read an alternative Goldilocks story. It is called ‘Eat Your Greens Goldilocks’. 
The children wrote little stories about Goldilocks and letters to the three bears, inviting them to tea.
They also wrote letters to Sue Woodgate, who organised the canal trip. They were thank you letters, which I have now given to Sue. She was quite overwhelmed!
We have been thinking about our word of the week, which is ‘add’. We have thought about what it actually means to add things together. The children said that the amount gets bigger, or more when you add to it.
In maths we have been measuring using ‘bears footprints’ instead of rulers. The children ,measured various things in the playground. They all went on the balance bikes out in KS2 
as well as balancing on the trim trail. Because the weather has been so good the children have been making canals and waterways, using half drain pipes and lots of water. They enjoyed creating in the mud kitchen, have been building assault courses and playing lots of ball games.
In maths we have been playing addition games and I challenged them to solve a problem, a little bit like suduko, using numicon. All the rows had to add up to ten! Lots of children wanted to challenge themselves with this puzzle.
As ever, we have been practising the digraphs and tricky words, playing many different games to keep it interesting and engaging for them. They are still keen to show us how much they have learnt in their weekly spelling competition. I ran out of time to give them their scores today, but half the class got full marks, with most others making small mistakes. I am so proud of all the effort the children are putting in and their enthusiasm for learning. The children will get their rewards on Monday, so well done all.
Next week is Active Week, so that means that there will be sporty activities everyday. The children do not wear uniform at all during the week, but come in sporty clothes each day. If it is anything like previous years, it should be a lovely fun week.
HOMEWORK
As well as the next list of words for our spelling competition next week, please can the children have a go at the addition challenges in their books. I have taught them how to do the various addition number sentences in class. Some are very challenging, so do not worry if it is a bit tricky.
Have a lovely weekend
See you on Monday for a fun filled, sporty week
The Reception Team
PS: Our caterpillars have changed into chrysalises now...so watch this space!
Dear all,
This week we have been reading the story ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’, so I brought in the different vegetables for the children to look at. These included spinach, cabbage, beetroot, peas, rhubarb, potatoes and carrots. The children wrote shopping lists of the different vegetables. They also wrote letters to Oliver reminding him which vegetables he had eaten at grandad’s house.
On Thursday we gave Mrs Preece instructions to make a jam sandwich. Afterwards we had the chance to make a sandwich ourselves and then we wrote instructions for making one.
In maths we have been continuing to count and recognise numbers from 0 - 20. We found half of both shapes and numbers and even explored sharing objects into three and four equal groups.
There have also been opportunities for model making, painting fruit and vegetables, role play and singing linked to our topic. We have also been scrunching tissue paper up and making collaged fruit and veg pictures.
In my PE session we played games using positional language - on, under, next to , between, behind and in front of. Our RE story this week was the ‘Crocodile and the priest’, which is from the Sikh religion. The moral behind this story is that we should not judge others from their appearance, or make fun / belittle others. Someone tiny may be just as strong as a bigger person etc.
In phonics we practised all our tricky words and learnt ‘Mrs’ and ‘Mr’, we also learnt some new digraphs - ai (as in sail, tail, chain etc) and ea (as in tea, sea etc). We practised our previously learnt digraphs too.
Next week, on Tuesday, it is our canal barge trip. ALL the children will be provided with a picnic lunch, so please do not bring a packed lunch on that day. We have asked them to specify which type of sandwich they want and they have given us their preferences. Some children will eat on the barge and others will eat at school (weather permitting outside!) We are really looking forward to a lovely day.
Congratulations to Hallie, who won the Vernon Building Society colouring competition at Easter. She was presented with her prize this morning in assembly.
HOMEWORK
Please practise the next list of words for next week. Your children are really rising to the challenge of the Friday spelling competition. Today everyone received a chocolate, because they either got them all correct, or just one wrong. Well done for everyone's hard work.
You can continue to practise maths on Mathletics too and are always welcome to post any learning on Tapestry.
Have a lovely weekend
See you on Monday
The Reception Team
PS: Our caterpillars are getting bigger each day!
Dear all,
We have had another great week with our ‘Scrumdiddlyumptious’ topic. This week we have used the idea from the Hungry Caterpillar story to write about the different foods that we like to eat. We have used adjectives to describe them. Eg: On Monday I ate a juicy tomato.
We have been observing our caterpillar's, which have come from 'Insect Lore'. They are getting bigger every day.
In maths we have been looking at shapes (2D and 3D / solid and flat). The children are using their voices to describe the shapes now. They also have been doing subtraction calculations from 10, 20 and even finding one less than even higher numbers.
There have been opportunities for art and painting, building and lots of role play in our ‘supermarket’.
The children had fun learning cricket skills on Monday, as well as their normal PE session on Tuesday.
In RE we are looking at what we can learn through stories, so we talked about the story of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’. We decided that we should not tell lies, because people stop believing us!
In phonics we practised all our tricky words and learnt ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘what’, as well as practising our digraphs (two special friends which sit together to make one sound)!
HOMEWORK
Thank you for practising the tricky words with your children. I was thrilled that so many children got full marks in the competition. Most of the other children made only one mistake - 'my' instead of 'me' for example. I had given the children an incentive (prize) to try and get all of the spellings correct, so I rewarded the children who got full marks with a chocolate. Because they all tried so hard, all of the class moved their names up. Well done Reception. Learning how to spell these tricky words and practising them regularly will hopefully help them to be more confident writers. Please practise the next list of words for next week.
Don’t forget to practise maths on Mathletics. I have assigned some activities to everyone, rather than the children just accessing the usual materials.
I have written out in the homework books, individual activities which will help your help your child with their learning. These activities vary depending on your child's ability and needs. We have 5 weeks of school before I have to submit my assessments, so every minute of learning counts!
I love learning through play and believe in it wholeheartedly, but this term is a time when I also have to prepare the children for the next stage in their education and their transition into year 1. Because of this, things may feel a bit more formal. Please only encourage your child to do what they can. I appreciate that they are 4 and 5 years old, so these are all just suggestions.
Have a fun filled bank holiday
See you on Tuesday
Mrs Preece and the Reception team
Hi everyone, welcome back. I hope that everyone had a great holiday. We have kick started our new topic 'Scrumdiddleyumptious' with the story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. Our word of the week was 'adjective', so we learnt what an adjective is and then found lots of adjectives to describe the tastes, smells and textures of the food from the story. We also looked at other vocabulary in the book, including all the days of the week.
In phonics we revistited the digraphs 'ow', 'ou', 'air' and 'ir', as well as learning the tricky words 'one', 'once' and 'want'.
In maths we went over counting forwards and backwards to 20. We sequenced and ordered numbers to 20, we had quick fire carpet sessions with number bonds to 10 and also played lots of addition and subtraction games in groups. The children were keen to challenge themselves with addition and subtraction problems during free choosing time too.
We also learnt more about capacity and weight this week as well!
Bigger doesn't always mean heavier!!!
In RE our focus this half term is 'What can you learn from stories from different cultures?', so this week I told the children the Muslim story of Bilal and the Butterfly. The moral of the story is that we should see beauty in everything. The children then talked about all the things that they find beautiful in the world. These things included butterflies, rainbows, bouncy castles and many other things... We wrote our ideas down.
Following on from this, we watched a video about the butterfly life cycle. Everyone read an information sheet about the butterfly lifecycle and answered some questions about what they had read.
I am sooooo impressed by what the children have retained during their two week break. It seems to have been a chance for them to consolidate their learning. Everyone has returned to school with an enthusiasm to try and to learn, which is amazing.
Thank you so much for posting all the wonderful pictures and videos on Tapestry. It has been super to see what you have all been up to over the holidays. The children love looking at these at school. This week the children's homework is to practise the tricky words for a little competition next Friday. I have put the lists in the homework books, so you know which words to practise each week. As ever, please listen to your child read, as well as reading stories to them. This is so important and will have lasting effects on their love of reading. I will listen to everyone read next week, to make sure that they are on the book band that they should be on.
Thank you so much and have a brilliant (if a little wetter than last weekend) weekend.
Best Wishes from the Reception Team
Dear all,
What a busy, but fantastic term this has been. I have seen your children make so much progress, that they are certainly getting ready for that transition to KS1. It is scary how fast the time has flown. All the children made me so proud with their beautiful singing during our Easter service at Church. Everyone commented on how amazing it was that they sung with no backing track and did all the actions so perfectly. Well done to all of them.
In our last week of term we looked through the children's topic books together and they made any additions to pieces of writing, calculations or pictures. They also commented about their work and told us what they had been learning at that time. We made yummy Easter cakes and cross key rings too. We also got to hold and play with our chicks on various occasions. In addition to this, we did outdoor PE and indoor PE and we practised our songs for the Easter service. Because Reception and year 4 jointly won the whole school behaviour ping pong ball challenge, we rewarded the children with lots of things to play with that are their absolute favourites. We got out resources like the Macdonalds toys, Barbie dolls and cars and the marble run, as well as colouring, drawing and playdough. We still practised our phonics, tricky words and maths too; through quizzes, treasure hunts, and games. On Friday Mrs Wilson took our chicks home, as she has a chicken coop at her house and is going to rear the chicks herself. She will send us updates and photos of their progress. The man came from 'Living Eggs' to collect the incubator etc. He gave us a certificate for successfully completing the chick hatching experience.
Thank you for all the wonderful cakes for the 'Bake Off' sale. We all enjoyed eating lots of delicious treats at snack time on Friday.
I hope that you enjoyed the Easter Service at church. It was wonderful to see so many of you there.
Have a great Easter everyone. I look forward to seeing you all again in a couple of weeks for our final term (I will be so sad to see this wonderful class go into year 1). Our next topic is all about 'Food', but within that topic there will be stories and learning about various animals and food, including the Hungry Caterpillar and The Gingerbread Man. We have our two trips to look forward to and lots of learning adventures...
Bye for now
Mrs Preece and the Reception team 
Dear all,
This week started with real ‘egg’citement, when we received a delivery of ten eggs on Monday morning. A farmer brought them to us, because his hen Lily could not look after them and needed the children in my class to help her. We kept them warm in an incubator and have been absolutely thrilled to see them hatching this week. So far 9 out of 10 eggs have hatched and we have three boys and six girls. We hope that the other egg hatches over the weekend, but we have warned the children that sometimes they don't. Mrs Hammond has taken the chicks to look after over the weekend. She is thrilled to be playing 'mummy' to them.
The arrival of the chicks has inspired lots of ‘chick’ related writing, as well as chick and egg maths.
We have continued to practise halving and doubling too, so the children are getting pretty good at this now. As well as continuing to practise our set 1 and 2 sounds, we have been looking at the tricky words -
when and what.
We have had such beautiful weather for the past couple of days that we have spent a lot of time outside. Here are some photos from our activities in our outside area.
Activities have included marbling onto paper, cleaning and watering, making an Easter garden with the tonb and the cross for Jesus, observing our bean plants, drawing and labelling the pictures, sequencing the lifecycle of a chick.
Next week will be the last week before Easter, so it will be full of Easter crafts, songs and other activities. We have a church service on Friday afternoon, where we will be performing a song. There is going to be a practise on Thursday morning, so if anyone can help with the walk to and from church, it would be great. The same applies on Friday afternoon; if you can help with the walking then please let us know.
I have given the children a sheet on halving to practise please.
Thank you everyone and enjoy the 'mother's day' weekend. Log in to Tapestry on Sunday for a surprise!
From Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
Hello again. Firstly thank you very much to those of you who came in to school for our impromptu ‘significant person day’. I hope that you enjoyed spending time in the classroom, looking at the children’s work and spending a little bit of time with your children.
This week we have continued to use the story Jack and the Beanstalk as the basis for our activities.
The children have been having a go at writing their own version of the Jack and the Beanstalk story. I am really impressed with how many children are using finger spaces, writing on the lines, incorporating the tricky words that they have learnt and using the phonics that they know to spell words. I am encouraging them to be as independent as they can be for their writing. Thank you so much for encouraging your children to write at home. I absolutely loved reading the homework this week. It was brilliant to see! As ever, they had PE on Tuesday and Thursday. In my PE session on Thursday, I introduced them to hockey.
We played various games: one where we passed the ball back and forwards to a partner and then another where we dribbled the ball and scored goals. In maths we have been learning about subtraction (take away, minus) and halving numbers. The children are telling me how much they enjoy ‘Mathletics’, so thank you for encouraging them with that. As well as practising our set 1 and 2 sounds, we have been looking at the tricky words - there and were. We have also been practising writing j because the children were curving it the wrong way at the bottom. We looked at the names for all the letters, which most of the children seemed to know anyway, so that is good. We also looked at how to form the capital / upper case letters too.
Please continue to practise maths (subtraction / halving in particular), phonics, tricky words and reading at home. I have put some specific homework in for a few children, but otherwise your child can write, draw, or please can you upload a photo of some of your child’s learning / experiences on Tapestry.
Thanks so much
Enjoy your weekend everyone.
From Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
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Tricky words to practise:
some, come, one, there, were, said, they
Dear all,
Another week has flown by! It hasn’t been very nice weather has it? Let us hope that all these storms will pass over the weekend and we will have some drier, warmer days next week.
Today we were finally able to launch our different shaped parachutes (circular, triangular, square, rectangular), to see which shape went the slowest and would therefore be the best / safest. It wasn't really a fair test, because on two occasions the wind picked up the circular parachute and blew it onto the roof. It did eventually come down, but it wasn't really fair. Out of the other shapes it appeared that the triangular parachute was the slowest. This surprised me!
This week we have read the story Jack and the Beanstalk, so our activities have been based on that.
We have planted lots of seeds in our outside area, as well as broad beans, which we have planted in clear pots, so that we can see their roots and stems growing. We had a science day on Wednesday, which was great fun. The children tried out lots of experiments and observations.
We have been learning the Easter Story; talking about why Christians have a cross as a symbol of Easter. Some of the children have been using the hack saw today to cut wood to make their own crosses. Next week we will continue this and also decorate them.
They had PE on Tuesday and Thursday (yoga and then equipment out like an assault course). I was very impressed with the children’s listening skills and ability to work independently at each of the stations. In maths we have been continuing to work on number bonds to ten, simple additions, as well as doubling numbers.
Next week we will be concentrating on subtraction and halving. Keep up the great work and practise on ‘Mathletics’, because it really does help the children learn how to develop speed in mental calculations. We haven’t written in our phonics books this week very much, because we have been practising our phonics and tricky words in a more active way. This has involved races and treasure hunts etc. We have been looking at the tricky words - some, come and one. We have also been practising the digraphs ou, ir, ar, or and ow as well.
Thank you so much for the ladybird doubling homework. I really enjoyed marking it and seeing what maths superstars your children are becoming.
I know that this is very short notice and I apologise for that, but I would like to invite any of you who can make it into our classroom next Friday morning between 9 and 10 for a little open morning. It is the school ‘significant person’ day and I thought that you are our Reception children’s most significant people. It is very spur of the moment, so I am sorry if you can’t make it. Please let me know if you can come. Let’s keep it as a surprise for the children though and not tell them until the day.
Enjoy your weekend everyone. From Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
HOMEWORK
This weekend please can your children have a go at writing about one of the pictures I have sent. It could be a caption or a little story, depending on how much or little they are capable of. Please try and encourage independence. I would prefer to see the children spelling words phonetically like this example below, rather than perfectly spelt (because if it is perfect then I know that they have just copied it, which is fine, but it isn’t encouraging their independence.)
Eg: The man workt up the rowd is preferable to ‘The man walked up the road’, because the children haven’t yet learnt ‘oa’ as a phoneme or ‘walked’ as a tricky word. If they miss sounds out that is also fine too eg: He wet to the soomrkt, (He went to the supermarket). Give them their tricky word sheet and the sound mat to help them.
Thank you so much.
Hi again everyone,
We have had another great week in the Reception classroom. It was pancake day on Tuesday, so we enjoyed the story of Mr Wolf and the pancakes. We also made pancakes, ate them and tossed them in a frying pan outside! We made up our own dinosaur stories by using props from the story box. The children took it in turns to say what happened next and some of the stories were very funny. Mrs Preece brought in a daffodil, which had only just started to grow, so we measured it using multilink cubes and then recorded our findings. We are going to measure it every week for three weeks and see how much bigger the plant grows. On Thursday it was World Book Day, so everyone dressed up and looked fabulous. We read lots of stories and talked about our fantastic outfits. We have been learning the story ’How to Grow a Dinosaur’ and designing our own seed packets. Our role play area ‘school’ has been interesting for all the children to play and learn in. The children have been doing lots of independent writing for their school, as well as lists for pancake day and book reviews for World Book Day. They have been practising their number reading, writing and counting skills, through games and fun activities. This week we practised the digraphs: ir and igh. We also wrote tricky words down in our phonics books.
I loved reading your independent writing in your homework books. Thanks so much for sharing.
Following on from us talking with the children about doubling, I have enclosed a sheet for the children to double the ladybird spots and write down the number.
Thanks
Mrs Preece and the Reception Team
Welcome back everyone!
The children have settled back into class after the week off and what a start to the week we had. I’m sure by now you have heard, or seen on Tapestry all about the trespassing dinosaur in our playground and classroom. This really fired up the children’s imaginations, so they have been buzzing with excitement all week.
There has been loads of writing about dinosaurs, as well as maths - one fewer and one more, as well as number bonds and doubling numbers.
The children have used their imaginations and have pretended to be pop and rock stars, as well as, the old faithful, teachers. Following on from this obsession to play at teachers, Mrs Hammond has turned the role play area into a classroom. It has everything a teacher and their class might need, so hopefully the children will enjoy playing in there.
We have also been looking at 3D shapes, going on shape hunts in and around the classroom, as well as playing shape bingo and drawing shapes.
I have listened to lots of children read this week, but will make sure that I get to listen to those who I didn’t hear next week.
In PE the children have been continuing to practise their fundamental movement skills, including some team games. We played dodgeball today! Who doesn’t enjoy throwing balls at one another? We have also explored colour and silhouette in art, creating lovely dinosaur landscapes. Today we also made up a song all about noisy dinosaurs, using different instruments for each different dinosaur. It was VERY NOISY!
In phonics we have revisited digraphs: oy, ow and ou. We also looked at tricky words and practised
previously learnt sounds.
HOMEWORK
I have included specific homework for your child. Please see the glued in sheet. If yopu can’t remebr your mathletics login let me know and I will give it you again. I know that screen time should be kept to a minimum and that there are lots of other ways to learn, but it is such a good resource and it does really help children consolidate their maths learning.
Thanks so much for all your support and have a good weekend.
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
(Did anyone spot my deliberate mistake on the stuck in homework? If not see if you can spot it!)
Hello,
It has been an exciting week with lots more Chinese New Year activities. These have included exploring the value of coins, counting coins into red envelopes, dancing like Chinese dragons and acting out the zodiac story.
The money song for children UK (on Youtube) is really great!
We also painted symmetrical dragon faces and made Chinese Dragons the same size as a ruler.
It has also been assessment week across the school, so we have assessed the children’s maths skills and I have listened to every child read this week too. The maths assessment showed me that lots of progress is being made, but one area that we need to get better at is still number bonds (the two numbers that make 10) and counting backwards or forwards from a given number, rather than counting from 0 all the time.
EG: If they have 4 gold coins and I say “what is one more?”, some children will count them all again, rather than keeping 4 in their head and just saying “one more is 5”. The same applies with one fewer! More of the children find this difficult and start counting them all again, rather than just knowing that one fewer than 5 is 4!
Any practise with this and number bonds at home would be great. Mathletics is great for speeding up maths skills, number recognition and counting.
The children’s reading has improved tremendously! Keep up your support with this. Remember even a couple of lines at a time is better than nothing. You don’t have to read the whole book. Little and often is better! We have now learnt all of our set 1 and 2 sounds, so the children should be able to write quite a lot of words and even sentences now. Encourage any independent writing at home…just remind the children to try and use their phonics to spell words out and try and remember their tricky words.
As well as individual graphemes we have learnt how to read and write the digraphs and trigraphs:
Ow – as in snow
Oy – as in boy
Ou – as in out
Ay – as in may
Igh – as in high
Ee – as in see
Or – as in fork
Air – as in hair
Ar – as in car
Th – as in think
Sh – as in shed
Ch – as in chip
We will now keep going over these until the children are really secure. We have introduced the tricky word ‘her’ this week and practised ‘have’ and ‘said’.
Because all children learn at different rates, some children are still not secure with their individual sounds. Keep practising these as regularly as you can. Homemade bingo games are great for practising numbers or phonics.
The homework this week is all about exploring money and coins. It is the Chinese New Year celebration in Manchester this weekend, so why not have a really lovely day out there with your family.
Next week it is the run up to Valentine’s Day, so there will be love in the air. We will be writing valentine cards to our year 6 buddies and anyone else that they choose to make one for.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
We tasted fortune cookies and prawn crackers 
and painted a dragon outside 
Gong Hey Fat Choy (Chinese Happy New Year)
Even though Chinese New Year is not actually until next Tuesday, we have started to learn about the Chinese celebrations and also the story of the Chinese horoscope. There have been chopsticks to try to use, which have been quite challenging, but it is a really good fine motor activity to try and pick pom-poms up and move them into another container. We set up a Chinese restaurant, where the children could take orders, say what food they want and also pay for their meal. Because the class is very imaginative, they have really enjoyed this role play. (The one thing they don’t like to do is tidy up and put things back in the right places. Please could you encourage this at home, so that it reinforces what we are saying at school.)
We have also been writing short sentences about what happened to the poor cat in the story? I am so impressed that the children are using their phonics and tricky words to have a go at writing sentences. They are even trying to sit their writing on the lines and are leaving finger spaces.
Everyone has been on Mathletics, so even the children who haven’t yet had a go at home, have gained themselves 100 points.
We have also been practising painting Chinese writing, as well as making Chinese lanterns out of folded and cut paper.
We have had some extremely cold and snowy weather this week, so the children have also been investigating ice and playing in the snow. We were of course off on Wednesday, because there was a lot of snow! I hope everyone had some fun in the snow.
In phonics we have learnt digraphs: oy and air
We also looked at tricky words: want, have, like, love
HOMEWORK
Because it is coming up to Chinese New Year, please could your child could do something at home related to this topic. I have attached a home/learning challenge, which has some suggested activities. You could do one of the activities, or a few of them...it’s entirely up to you. Please also continue to keep with reading and, now that everyone has had a go, play some maths challenges on Mathletics. You do not have to do the homework mentioned, but anything that you do help your children with at home is really supporting their learning. Thank you for sharing your ‘zap it’ tricky word games on Tapestry. It was great to see the children enjoying the game and learning at the same time.
Have a fabulous weekend once again
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
This is one of the season pictures we created in RE for the Nowruz festival of Springtime. We also planted our own lentils and they have grown just like the Iranian little boy did for the Nowruz festival. Our word of the week this week was 'festival'.
Dear all,
It was lovely to spend time with you all this week at the parents’ evenings (and I had 100% turn out, so thank you very much for that!)
This class is amazing, so I feel very proud to be their teacher. Please tell the children how proud I am of all the effort and hard work they put in and for their amazing behaviour, which is commented on across the school.
This week we have been arctic explorers, trying to free the objects from the ice, using warm water, hammers and salt. We have also had a real life arctic world to discover with the snow on Tuesday and the freezing conditions on Wednesday. We have also exercised our bodies in PE - outdoors on Monday and inside on Thursday. On a Thursday Mrs Preece succumbed to the “Baby Shark” craze, so we have been dancing to that, amongst other follow the actions songs. We have challenged ourselves to listen and only join in when it is our group’s turn, which is sometimes tricky to do, especially when we are so keen to do the actions!
We have done loads of writing - we have written about our favourite part of the trip last week, as well as writing about one of the characters from Frozen (everyone has a favourite!)
We have also practised our tricky words, as well as learning new sounds ‘ir’ and ‘or’.
In maths we have continued with counting up to and back from 20. In small groups we have counted out piles of a certain number of ’snowballs’ and said which pile is fewer and which is more than.
We have also played on an app called ‘Phonics Bloom’, which is free. We played on the games for phase 2, but I think at home some of you could be challenged to play on the phase 3 games. We also used the interactive whiteboard to play on Top Marks Maths games and ‘Mathletics’. We played the games with numbers up to 20 counting forwards and backwards. Everyone tried really hard and seemed to really enjoy the challenge.
Phonics Bloom 
Top Marks Maths 
Mathletics
HOMEWORK
As I have mentioned these apps - Mathletics and Phonics Bloom, please could you have a go this weekend. Phonics Bloom is just a free app, but you are signed up to Mathletics, so use your user name and password to access it. Next week the whole school is really pushing ‘Mathletics’, so hopefully everyone will get involved and gain some certificates at the end of the week.
I have also attached a sheet of tricky words. Please encourage your child to read them (particularly the first 2 columns, which we have learnt already). Write them on lolly sticks and write ZAP IT on certain lolly sticks, then take it in turns to pull them out of a cup with your child. Pull out one at a time and try and read the word. If you can read it, you get to keep it...if not, you have to put it back. If you pull out ZAP IT then you win all of your opponents sticks. The person with the most sticks wins!
Have fun and remember to post any of your learning on Tapestry.
See you next week
The Reception Team
Hi everyone,
Well we are back from a busy a fun filled day at Imagine That! In Liverpool. It was quite a long journey, but it was certainly worth it. The children explored the science room, filled with a variety of different hands-on activities. We then helped the professor make strawberry smelling baths bombs. After that we explored the village role play area, where there was a hairdresser’s, a pizzeria, a vet’s, supermarket, TV weather studio and a construction site, to name but a few. The children explored the areas for a little while before lunch and then had more science workshops and time to play once again, before we returned home. It was very exciting (and nerve wracking for Mrs Preece) when it started snowing heavily. We thought that we might be staying overnight in Liverpool at one point! Anyway, we made it back to school just before the 3.15pm bell.
This week some of the children started our ‘Ready Set Ride’ activity on the new balance bikes. All the children will be taking part in this and will receive a certificate once they have completed the training. We have also been busy writing, counting, measuring and reading. The children have even been working out the answers to addition questions in our classroom challenges.
We have learnt the diagraphs: ay, ar, oo (making an u sound, as in look and book) and practised our tricky words.
I have completed a phonics assessment and am so happy with the progress that the majority of children are making. I can share this information with you in parent’s evening next week.
I haven’t given out homework this weekend, because of all the things we were giving out at the end of the day., but please keep reading, counting to and from 20 and practising handwriting whenever possible. If you do any activities, it is amazing to see what you have been up to, so please post any pictures on Tapestry.
Next week it is due to be really cold, so we will be arctic explorers with ice and snow!
I look forward to seeing you at parent’s evening on either Tuesday or Thursday. I will send a little reminder home on Monday telling you your time and day.
Have a great weekend.
The Reception Team
We have had another good week in Reception. We have welcomed a new little girl into our class. Hello Jessica!
The children have worked very hard as scientists. They have been investigating and exploring objects and mixtures in the classroom and outside. These investigations have included ballon racing, making salt dough, investigating what happens when you mix oil and water together, what happens when you mix cornflour and water together and looking at similarities and differences in objects around the classroom.
On Monday everyone looked amazing when they came in dressed as their inspirational person. Thanks so much for making so much effort with this. All the children wrote a short sentence about who they had dressed up as.
We also practised lots of maths this week using our counting to help with measuring and our investigation of shapes. The children talked about how many sides and faces they could see on a variety of different shapes. We looked at the 2D shapes - square, oblong rectangle, triangle, circle, pentagon, hexagon and octagon and the 3D shapes - cube, cuboid, pyramid, cone, cylinder, sphere and triangular prism. The children counted when they measured objects using blocks, tens rods and rulers. They children used the language of bigger and smaller, fewer and more.
We enjoyed your company on Wednesday afternoon, where we played phonics games. The homework this week follows on from one of the activities that we had out then, which is making words out of graphemes (letters). Make sure that you put at least one vowel (purple letter) in the middle of the word. See how many different ones you can make and then write. You can show these on Tapestry, or write them in your books...it's up to you how large or small you write your words.
This week we have also learnt two new sounds - 'igh' and 'ar'. Please try and practise these as much as you can with your child, so that have a better chance of remembering them. The digraphs (two letters sitting together making one sound) and trigraphs (three letters sitting together making one sound) are harder for the children to remember than the single letter sounds!
We also talked about New Year's resolutions in RE. WE sang Auld Lang Syne and blew kisses to each other. We then said one thing which we wanted to achieve this year. Some children said that they would like to learn to swim and others said things like not eating as many sweets. They wrote these New Year resolutions down too.
It's been a great week full of hard effort, concentration, but more importantly fun. Next week we have our trip to look forward to!
See you all on Monday
The Reception Team
HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Welcome back everyone. I hope that you had a lovely Christmas.
It has been fabulous to see everyone’s smiling and eager faces this week. The children have come back to school enthusiastic and ready to learn, which is brilliant. Although it has only been a very short week, we have been learning about the word ‘fewer’. One of the children described it beautifully, saying “If you had two chocolates and then you ate one you would have fewer than you had to start with!” The children all agreed that it was the opposite of “more”. They then found one fewer than a given number. We have also been practising our previously learnt phonic sounds and tricky words. We have been reading, writing and finding number bonds to ten. This has all been in addition to playing inside and outside. What a busy time we have had! Next week is very exciting because on Monday we will come in to school dressed as an important person of our choice. I can’t wait to see everyone’s outfits.
HOMEWORK
As well as reading this weekend, please could your child have a go at filling in the missing words into the simple sentences on the sheet in their homework books.
Thank you and have a fabulous weekend.
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
Well we have just finished our incredibly 'full on' and festive penultimate week in this first term at All Saints'. Next week will be even more of a festive frenzy; starting with Monday's Carol Service / Reception Nativity rehearsal in the morning, then the children will get changed into their party clothes in the afternoon for a Christmas Party with year 1 and 2. On Tuesday we have a big assembly for the children in the morning folllowed by an icecream party to celebrate their spelling / phonic achievements this term. In the evening we will be going to Church (meet us in the Bowyer Hall at the back of church at 5.45pm). Reception parents and families have reserved seats at the front of church. Our children will not be in the whole of the Carol Service...we will be getting changed and ready for our grand entrance. We are the finale! What a fabulous finale that will be. On Wednesday we will have a 'normal' morning followed by our daytime performance in the afternoon up at All Saints' church. It is going to be busy!
Lots of children have been under the weather this week with coughs, colds and temperatures. This is normal at this time of year, but pretty miserable for them. Hopefully with a rest this weekend they will be raring to go next week for their parties and moment of fame on stage.
Sadly we said goodbye to Miya this week, as she has moved out of the area. We were all very sorry to see her go.
I will be trying to catch all of you for a 5 minute catch up next week, or in the first few days after the Christmas holidays. This is nothing to worry about. It is just to give you some feedback from our recent assessments and to give you an idea of what your children will be learning over the coming months in Reception. I can then hopefully answer any of your questions in our parents evenings on the 22nd and 24th January.
So what have we been up to this week? Well we have done some experiements with candy canes, done some measuring (thanks to Loius inspiring us all!), made Christmas crackers, practised our phonics with lots of phonic board games, smelt, stirred and tasted the ingredients for mincemeat, made paper chains, threaded pipecleaner and bead decorations and got involved in lots of festive maths games. Here are some photos of some of these activities.
Measuring around the classroom 
Making paper chains
Experimenting how candy canes dissolve
Reindeer poop addition
Phonics games
Making and copying patterns and sequences
Mixing, smelling and tasting the ingredients to make mince pies
Making sparkly, glittery cards!
Have a fab weekend. There is no homework this weekend. Please just relax, read a little, count a little and stay well for our last few days.
Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Hammond x
Hi again,
We are well into Christmas mode now with only 1 1/2 weeks to go! How did this term go so fast?
We have been practising our Nativity, making Christmas cards, doing festive maths and writing all about the 3 Wise Men bringing Jesus gifts.
We have repeated the phonics sounds ‘b’ ‘d’ ‘th’ and ch’ this week. We have also learnt the tricky words ‘said’, ‘are’ and ‘everyone’ because the children are coming across them in their reading books.
Next week will be full of more Christmas crafts and fun activities to get into the seasonal spirit. We will however continue to listen to your children reading and will be practising ‘tricky words’, phonics and numbers to 20 with the children every day.
HOMEWORK
· Reading - if the children come across an unfamiliar or complicated word then please help them and explain that if they try to use the picture to help them they can sometimes work it out just from the beginning sounds. The more they read these words, the more they remember them. A lot of words are not phonetic!
· Practising counting and number recognition.
· Looking for the angels in the shops in Marple.
· Practising their words / songs for our Nativity.
Thanks and have an amazing weekend.
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
Christmas has started with a vengeance in our classroom. We have tinsel, decorations, cards, glitter, a tree and lots of wrapping paper.
The week has been spent happily indulging in lots of festive activities, like present wrapping in the elves workshop, writing recipes for chocolate cakes, baking cakes, matching letters to door numbers, as well as starting to practise for our nativity. We have been wrapping 3D shaped presents, as well as making festive words using the plastic letters and then writing them down. We have practised counting with rolling the dice and playing a snowman version of ‘Beetle Drive’. This has involved lots of lovely turn taking and number matching. Outside the children have been drawing with chalk, mixing potions in the mud kitchen and using their imagination with small world and role play...especially enjoying the elves workshop.
Phonics this week has included looking at, reading and writing tricky words, as well as learning the sounds; ‘oo’ and ‘ee’ and practising ‘b’ and ‘d’, which always seem to stump the children.
We have been singing songs from our nativity and also have had a go at saying the speaking parts. Miss Whittleworth, Mrs Hammond and Mrs Preece were very impressed by the children’s fabulous clear voices.
This week I have also been assessing the children’s reading, phonics and maths, so I will feedback how your child has been doing in a short summary. Please expect this feedback in the next couple of weeks.
It was lovely to see so many of you in class for our Christmas craft morning. Hopefully we will see you on Saturday at the Christmas Fair.
HOMEWORK
Thank you for your support and encouragement with the number bonds and also all the uploads onto Tapestry. This week please can you help your children practise their lines (if they have them) and also learning the words to the songs, as much as they can, so that the children are immersed in them.
We have costumes, but if you want to provide one yourself you are more than welcome to. Please let us know either way. Thanks and have a great weekend
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Hi again,
We had our ‘Beep, Beep Road Safety Day’ on Wednesday in class, where we spent lots of time thinking about how to stay safe near roads. The children were involved in lots of craft, singing, colouring and role play activities based on road safety.
This week we have introduced the children to the Nativity Story, so they have started to think about which parts they would like to play in our own “Nativity for Little Ones” performance, which will be part of the carol service at Church at the end of term. Next week we will let you know which part your child has chosen to be.
This week we have also read the story of “Stick Man” and have been busy completing various maths, craft and writing activities based on the story.
In maths we have been looking at number bonds to 10 using numicon pieces. (Number bonds are the two numbers which, when added together, make 10.) One very easy way of seeing number bonds to 10 is to use our own hands. We know that there are 10 fingers on our hands, so by bending some of them down and counting the straight ones and then the bent ones we can see our number bonds.
You could have a go of the attached activity over the weekend. How many different number bonds to 10 are there? Can you write them down? Can you show them in different ways ie: 8 apples and 2 pears is ten pieces of fruit. 8 chocolate buttons and 2 lollypops is 10 sweets etc.
In phonics the children learnt: qu, x, nk. We have also been learning these tricky words in class:
we, he, me, she and be.
Any practise of these sounds and words would also be much appreciated...but, as I always say, homework is not compulsory in Reception, so these are suggestions only.
I hope that you have a really great weekend.
Best Wishes
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone
This week has been Anti-Bullying week as well as Children in Need (today), so we have been learning about treating each other kindly and knowing that it is OK to be ‘me’. We have learnt that we can say ‘No’ or ‘Stop’ if someone is doing something that we don’t feel comfortable with and that we should think about other peoples feelings at all times. We have learnt a few different versions of the story of ‘The 3 Little Pigs’ and have practised lots of science activities based on the story. We have built houses from bricks, sticks and straw and tested which materials would make suitable, waterproof roofs for the pigs’ houses. There have been lots of other exciting activities including lots of maths and phonics. We looked at the numbers between 10 and 20, learning that a ten is made up of one lot of ten and zero units, eleven is one lot of ten and one unit, twelve is one lot of ten and two units and so on all the way to twenty, which is two lots of ten. I have demonstrated this using the numicon. I have attached a numicon maths sheet for your child to try this weekend, as it builds on what we have been learning this week.
Some of our activities this week
The children learnt two new digraphs (two letters sitting together / special friends) sounds:
'th', 'ch', and the grapheme ‘z’
We also learnt tow new tricky words - 'my' and 'of'
HOMEWORK (You can do as much or as little as you feel is suitable for your child)
· Please continue to listen to your child read. If they are struggling to blend letters into words (and some of the children are), then please sound out the word for them after they have read the sounds and see if they can orally hear the word. If they can’t hear it, then they can’t read it, so keep using a silly robot voice at home: Come for your t-ea, would you like a d-r-i-n-k? It’s time for your b-a-th.
· The numicon maths sheet attached. Recognizing teen numbers as one lot of ten and extra units.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
PS: Next week we will be having a ‘Beep, Beep’ road safety day on Wednesday, where all our activities will be about road safety. This is a project sponsored by ‘Brake’.
Hello,
Well it has been a bit of a funny week for me I’m afraid, as I was poorly for a couple of days. Anyway I was pleased to be back, as I really missed the children. Thankfully our wonderful TAs Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Hammond kept everything working like clockwork whilst I was away.
This week we have concentrated on Bonfire Night, Diwali and Remembrance Day, which involved lots of colourful pictures and creations using paint, collage, clay, glitter and pulses. The children have also been writing letters, because last week we had a surprise package from a school in the USA. We were sent a ‘Flat Stanley.’ Our class have been taking photos of him around our classroom and writing letters to send to the kindergarden children in America.
We have been thinking about light and shadows and created a shadow puppet theatre from a cardboard box with torches. This week’s homework is all about shadow puppets (see attached sheet). It would be great if you could take photos of some of the shadow hand puppets that you can create using your hand and a torch or lamp.
In Maths we have been creating shape pictures and talking about the different 2D shapes that we can find.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been introduced to the graphemes:
v, w and y
They also practised tricky words ‘go’, ‘no’, ‘so’
Please continue to listen to your child read. If they can ‘sound out’ a word in their head and just say the word then praise and encourage them...it makes reading more fluent and comprehension / understanding of the story much better. If they can’t and sound out and blend at the end, then this is absolutely fine too. They will do it all in good time and are all doing amazingly well with reading and writing, considering they have only been at school for 2 months.
Have a great weekend
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
I hope that everyone had a lovely half term holiday. I have enjoyed looking at pictures on Tapestry of some of the adventures that you had. The children have come back into class eager to learn and raring to go, which is wonderful.
This week we have been reading the book called “On Sudden Hill”, which is about friendship and emotions, but also about what wonderful imaginative things you can create from cardboard boxes. After the story the children came up with lots of exciting ideas of their own and even had a go at writing their ideas down. On Tuesday Sue Woodgate came into class to let the children have a taste of her delicious home made preserves. They even got to try cactus flavour jam! Two children actually liked that one the best! We made a chart to show which we like most and which we liked least. Most of the children liked blueberry jam the best!
In Maths we have continued to count to 10 and we have looked at reading and writing numerals to 10. Some children have been counting beyond ten and have been exploring ways to make the teen numbers from tens and units. We have been talking about more and fewer, as well as heavier and lighter. I have been encouraging the children to guess or estimate an amount and then check it by counting.
We have started a new topic in RE, which is all about Christmas. This has started with the subject of ’giving’. As a class we chose to send Mrs Manning’s new baby girl a present. The children chose items like a soft blanket, a rubber duck for her bath, or a soft teddy. They learnt that a bike or a technical lego set were not particularly suitable gifts for a little baby. Next week Mrs Manning is bringing baby Elizabeth in to say ‘thank you’ to the children for their gift.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been introduced to the graphemes:
j, r and the digraph (2 letters making one sound) ‘sh’
They also practised tricky words ‘to’, ‘do’, ‘the’ and ‘I’
Please continue to practise reading the graphemes we have learnt by reading and writing the enclosed words. I have also included a sheet of the tricky words which you just have to chant and practise, as they can’t be sounded out.
If you go to a bonfire or firework display this weekend please stay safe, but have a great time. We will be learning all about Guy Fawkes, Diwali Festival and Remembrance Day next week.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Our tasting of preserves earlier this week.
Hi again
This week we have been to church everyday except for Monday. We joined in with lots of fun activities with lots of singing. The people who helped at church were kind and friendly with the children. They had patience if we found anything tricky and they encouraged us. The children have been fantastic on the walk to and from church, as well as during all all the activities. I am very proud of this amazing class!
In maths we have been exploring the number 10; counting out 10 objects, showing 10 fingers and writing the number 10.
We have also learnt all about making up rules through the RE story, ‘Moses and the 10 commandments’. The children enjoyed the story and then made some classroom rules, which are on display in the classroom.
We have learnt new sounds and practised the sounds which we have learnt. The new sounds this week were: f, e, l, and and we practised the tricky words I, the, to and do
I'm sorry that I was on a conference today, so couldn't see everyone to say goodbye. I hear that the Harvest Festival went well, so I hope you enjoyed watching your children dancing to the Mango song and saying our prayer.
HOMEWORK
Nothing, but here are some nice suggestions of activities that you might like to do.
1. Go to the park and jump / shuffle through leaves
2. Have a lovely snuggly time listening to your favourite stories with your grown up
3. Watch TV in your pyjamas (in the middle of the day!!!!)
4. Help your grown up do some cooking
5. Play with your friends
6. Have a picnic in your living room
7. Dance to some music
8. Have fun.
Feel free to read, count, practise your letters etc and share anything that you get up to on Tapestry, but you really do not have to as it is your holiday!
Have a great time.
We will see you on Tuesday 30th October.
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Thank you everyone for your responses about your child’s abilities with ‘technology’. It is amazing what our 4 and 5 year olds can do with devices, apps and other technology. Thanks you also for your comments and posts in Tapestry. I love sharing the children's learning with you and seeing what your
children do in their own environment too. It creates a much more holistic picture of their ability. If you haven't yet activated your account to create a password on Tapestry please do so. I have put lots of photos and observations of your children, which I really want you to see...I have lots of observations to upload this weekend too.
This week we have been reading the book about The Little Red Hen. We have read the story, re-told the story, acted out the story and also done some great picture stories based on the book. I am extremely impressed with how much enthusiasm the children have for story telling and story creating. They are a very imaginative class. It is an absolute joy. We have also tasted different types of bread, saying which we like most and which we liked least. Most of the children liked brioche the best! Today we tasted Mango, lemon and coconut (from our song!) The lemon was so sour!
We have been exploring number; looking at numerals to 10 and the corresponding number of objects. We count all the time and sequence / order numerals regularly.
We have also continued our learning about being kind and helpful to people through the RE story, ‘Jesus heals the blind man’. The children enjoyed the story and then reflected on how they feel when they help others.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been introduced to the graphemes:
c, k, u, b and also the tricky words ‘to’, ‘do’, ‘the’
Please continue to practise reading the graphemes we have learnt by reading, writing and making words up with them. I have included some more sheets to help with letter formation and name writing. The hardest part for the children is moving their pen in an anticlockwise direction for many letters, which you will see by the arrows on each of some of the letters. It is something which is really tricky for all children, but so very important for when they start to join their handwriting up. It is therefore better to learn the right way right from the start. Practise with home made streamers in the air, large scale crayoning or painting - bigger is easier in the beginning.
You are welcome to share anything else that you might get up to this weekend in your homework book, or on Tapestry, but you are not obliged to put anything in if you don’t want to.
Next week we will have a fun filled week as it is church week - finishing with the Harvest service at Church on Friday afternoon.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Hello again,
This week the children have loved working on activities based around the story of Supertato, which has included lots of counting and number recognition activities, writing, drawing and cooking. As part of our topic ‘Superheroes’ we have been lucky enough to have had some ‘real life’ superhero visitors in school, including John the lollipop man and Oliver’s dad, who is a firefighter. The children have been extremely well behaved with our visitors, which shows me that they have learnt about appropriate behaviour and manners, which is great to see.
For the next two weeks we will be thinking about ‘Harvest’ and basing our learning and activities on the story of The Little Red Hen. The children will be learning how to re-tell the story off by heart and how to change it to make their own story. Next week I will send a story map home, so that you can practise the story at home with your child.
In the final week before half term it is church week, where we all take part in activities at All Saints’ Church. We will be walking to All Saints’ Church each morning, except on Monday, so if you are free to help with the walk either up to church for 9.30, or back from church at 11, then please let us know, as we would be most grateful. On Friday 19th Oct it is also the Harvest Celebration at church in the afternoon. Everyone is invited to this and we will need parent volunteers for the walk then as well. You can either let us know ourselves, or at the office. I will remind you next week too.
Thanks again for all your support with learning at home. The children are enjoying talking about their home learning especially when we share the pictures on Tapestry. Keep encouraging your child to read individual sounds and CVC words and to practise writing the sounds we have learnt. This week we revised all the phonemes (sounds) so far, which are m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p. g, o. How many words can you make with these graphemes (letters)? Do not be limited by paper and pens…enjoy exploring mark making in shaving foam, steam and cornflour gloop to name but a few.
HOMEWORK
As well as practising reading, this weekend please could you share in the home school books, or on ‘Tapestry’ anything that your child can do which involves technology? This could be using remote controls, playing games on an iPad or tablet, using games consoles, or scanning shopping at the supermarket till…anything. This is an area of learning that we don’t see evidence of much in school, but we know that in this day and age most children are exposed to technology regularly at home. Your comments will form part of our assessment.
Have another lovely weekend.
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Hello again,
It is the end of another busy week. Your children have worked so hard this week. We have been learning about ‘Everyday Heroes’, which have included thinking about all the people who help us in the community and also how we ourselves can be super heroes. We need kindness and love for other people, which includes sharing, helping and listening to others.
I have also been very proud when I have seen how quickly the children are picking up their phonics sounds, as well as learning how to behave in the classroom. Other members of staff through the school have noticed and commented on how quickly the children are learning, particularly in phonics, so that is lovely to hear. This week we have learnt i, n, p, g and o. I also introduced the children to the tricky word “I”.
On Thursday it was ‘International Languages’ day, so we sang Frere Jaques and said hello in French and Spanish.
Next week we are continuing our ‘Super Hero’ theme and we will be focusing on lots of counting and recognizing numerals activities. Thank you so much for all the support you are giving your children with home activities and reading. The books may have text in them, but enjoying the pictures and talking about it is the most important thing at this stage. Please don’t worry if your child cannot read the words yet. Picking out the odd letter that they have learnt and trying to blend the sounds that you sound out for them is all that is required for now. I have put some simple words that the children should be able to have a go at reading in their reading records. Please let us know how they get on and share any comments in the reading record. Please make sure that the reading books and reading records are in the children’s book bag every day.
I am also attatching a login for Mathletics and Spellodrome in the front of your child’s reading record. All the children in the school have a login, so if your child would like to have a try at some phonic games and maths games on a laptop, tablet or iPad, then they can.
HOMEWORK
This weekend please could you have a go at counting activities; including board games with a dice and counters, counting and sharing toys with teddies or dolls and also finding numbers in the environment. Point numbers out to your children and have a little competition to see which number they spot most
frequently. You can stick photos of your activities in the homework book, post them on Tapestry or get your child to have a go at writing some numbers in their book.
Thank you so much
Have a wonderful weekend whatever you do.
Mrs Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
Hello all,
Another busy week has passed very quickly. The children have settled into a routine now and we are amazed at how well they are sitting on the carpet, putting on their own coats and getting their own lunches. What super stars!
We are continuing to teach the basic rules and routines, but have also been introducing counting activities, Talk for Writing and phonics using the ‘Rainbow Fish’ story as inspiration.
In phonics we have been concentrating on ‘Fred Talk’, rhyming and sounds in the environment, as well as introducing our first sounds - m, a, s, d and t. We can now play about with these letters and make some words for example: mat, sad, dad, tat, sat, mast and Sam.
In RE we continued to talk about friendship, using the story ‘Rainbow Fish’ to help the children understand what qualities make a good friend. The children said that sharing their toys with friends makes them feel “happy” and even “wonderful”, which was lovely to hear.
Thank you so much for helping your child with rhyming.. We really enjoyed looking at the homework and reading your ’silly soup’ rhyming ingredients.
It was lovely to see most of you last week at our information evening. I'm sorry that there was rather a lot to digest. If anyone wants more information, or has any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
HOME ACTIVITY
I recommend that over the weekend you give your child lots of opportunities to ‘mark make’, whether it is in their book, on a blackboard, outside with paintbrushes and water. Encourage them to hold their pen, paintbrush, crayon or chalk correctly. Play lots of finger gym type exercises where they stretch and clench their fingers. Any practise will help. You could practise the letter sounds learnt this week, which are
m a s d t
Use our RWI rhymes for correct formation. I attach a sheet which the children can use if they want to help them with formation, but you could take photos of them doing bigger scale mark making and upload them onto ‘Tapestry’. If you haven’t yet activated your Tapestry account, please check emails for your
activation instructions. I have set most of you up. If there is a problem please let me know.
Please also have a look at your child’s reading book together (I know that some of you have, so we will change their books between Monday and Wednesday next week.) Please make a comment in the reading record, no matter how brief. We aim to change the books every week and will put more than 1 book in if you ask. Please have the reading book and reading record/ diary in their bags every day, so that we can look at it together whenever we have the opportunity.
Next week is all about “Super Heroes”, so if any of you are nurses, doctors, police men or women etc and are possibly available any day to talk to the children, please let me know.
All in all it has been a brilliant week. It is great to see friendships developing and confidence growing.
Thank you for all your support.
Have a great weekend. If you are in Marple for the Food and Drink festival then I might see you there.
Mrs. Preece, Mrs Hammond and Miss Whittleworth
It is the end of our first full week in Reception. It has been fabulous, but very busy and I’m sure your children will all sleep very well this weekend. All week we have been exploring the indoor and outdoor classroom resources. The children have particularly enjoyed the bikes outside as well as the mud kitchen! They have also played with the small cars outside on the ramps.
I introduced the magic story box on Monday to the children and they discovered the story of the Naughty Bus. All week we have been taking part in activities related to this story, including driving a toy bus through baked beans...ugggg!
The children have taken part in PE twice this week, with Mr G one day and me on Thursday. We really threw the children in at the deep end by encouraging them to get changed into their PE kits, but they rose to the challenge. What super stars.
We have been encouraging lots of independence eg: putting on coats, going to the toilet and tidying up. We have also reiterated our classroom rules, which are good sitting, good looking and good listening.
In RE we have been talking about special people, last week we talked about people in our family. We shared the photos from home, which many people kindly sent in and the children talked about their family during circle time. This week we discussed friends - what makes a good friend and who our friends are.
Before we move into formal phonics teaching, which I will talk about on Tuesday (18th Sept) evening, we are concentrating on phase 1 phonics, which is all about listening to sounds, rhyming, initial sounds and alliteration. This involves lots of listening games, initial sound repetition ie: J-J-J-Jake, rhyming and robot talk ie: please can I have the b-a-g?
This weekend, in your home/school book, please can you play rhyming games with your child. We use the “Slug in the Jug” game to play Silly Soup, where we add rhyming words together into a bowl to mix a silly soup. An example is “I’m going to make a silly soup, I’m making soup that’s silly, I’m going to cook it in the fridge, to make it nice and chilly...In goes… a fox… a box… some socks… (all rhyming items). Please could you come up with some rhymes together with your child. You could write out the words that they say, or they could draw or stick on pictures.
Please return your books by Wednesday. We will try and share these home/ school books in circle time next week, so that the children will have the opportunity to talk about their learning at home.
Thank you.
Have a great weekend.
Mrs. Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Hammond
Naughty Bus small world Naughty bus counting game Patterns with 'dots' Chocolate milkshake day Drawing on the IWB The Dot story
FIRST WEEK
Welcome everyone!
Your children have been an absolute delight this week. They have such good manners and behaviour; I feel like they have been at school for ages. I can't wait to see all the children together next week for full days!
This week we have listened to the story Pete The Cat in His School Shoes. The children have painted, drawn, coloured, built and counted with a Pete the Cat theme. They have also practised rhyming words, initial sounds, role play and singing. We have danced, squiggled, played musical instruments...not to mention balanced, explored water and capacity, played catch, chased around the BIG playground and made new friends.
We have been making observations and attaching photos to each child's Tapestry learning journal, so next week we will link you up to Tapestry and publish their posts. You will then be able to see some of your own child's learning during their time so far!
Thank you for sending photos of your family. The children loved telling us about the different members of their family today. All the children were quite eager to talk, which is quite unusual so early on in Reception.
Next week we will be reading the story of the Naughty Bus and our activities will focus on this story. We will also have a day to explore the school and environment, whilst the rest of the school are out for the day. How exciting!
Here are some photos from a few of the activities from this week:
Have a super weekend and see you on Monday,
Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Hammond
Just a last word...
It has been an absolute pleasure looking after your children this year. They are amazing and I wish them all the best in Year 1. Have a fabulous summer holidays. Mr Dine showed me how to use We Transfer, so I am going to try to upload the video of Reception 2018 year, so that you will be able to access it...just incase your DVD doesn't work properly. Bear with me, as it may take a little bit of time!
Thank you for your gifts and cards, they were not necessary, but very lovely. With the voucher I am definitely going to buy a new kindle, because mine has died and I thought I was going to have to wait until Christmas. So thank you so much, it will give me hours of reading pleasure!
Don't forget to keep encouraging your children to read everything, everywhere and anything, as well as looking at numbers when you are out and about; incorporating counting wherever you are and whatever you are doing. Learning can be fun and your children have certainly developed an appetite for it.
All my very best wishes
Mrs Preece
Good evening,
We have finished our penultimate week in Reception!!! It has been yet another busy one:
Then we had the letter from the fairy!! Trixy (our resident fairy) made an appearance again, after being away for over a year. This caused giddy excitement across, not only Reception, but the whole school. For two days we have been poster writing (Save our Fairy), letter writing (Please can you help to save our fairy) and toy making for Trixy.
Yesterday we had a visit from Reuben's grandad, who did some fantastic, physics investigations with the class using magnets. He finished the afternoon off with a sing song, playing his guitar. We felt very lucky...so thank you Mr Williams. Today we had a visit from Elizabeth's mum, who came and read a lovely story for us all. Thanks to her too.
We have also been lucky this week to have students Lauren and Natasha helping out in class. This has been brilliant and has meant that we could do some really lovely, small group activities, with all the children learning whilst being supported by an adult.
So...reports out this evening. Remember whatever the data (tick sheet) says, all the children have made tons of progress. I am one very proud teacher. Enjoy and celebrate their success this weekend. There is no need to do any homework, other than the usual reading, practising the tricky words for the ice-cream challenge next week and accessing mathletics or spellodrome (login in the front of your child's reading diary!)
Next week we will have our performance at Rose Hill, which should be lovely, if not completely exhausting for the children walking to and from Rose Hill! We'll also have a bit of a party with the children's year 6 buddies, as well as the ice-cream challenge. We will also be getting out all the children's favourite activities from this year, so that it is a busy and happy end to their time in Reception.
Please try your CD with the PDF Learning Journey on it. If for some reason it doesn't work, please bring in a named memory stick and I'll save the file to that for you. Have a lovely weekend
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth.
Hello again,
Another week has literally flown by again! I am getting quite emotional now, knowing that I have only 2 more weeks with my lovely class!
This week we continued our theme of journeys and adventures with the story of the 'Snail & The Whale'. We completed maths challenges finding out different combinations of 20 snails on the tails of 2 whales. The children wrote their number sentences down on whiteboards. They didn't even realise they were doing maths. The children all also wrote their part on their report, saying what they have enjoyed this year and what they might want to get better at in year 1. They have also written sentences about weird and wonderful pictures. These have included writing about a brick house on wheels, a sailing ship flying in the clouds and a little man hanging from a paper aeroplane! We have been singing songs from our concert about The Princess and The Pea (can I just say that the children are AMAZING...and I mean AMAZING at remembering the words to lots and lots of songs. Miss Whittleworth and I get more confused than the children!)
Today we were busy with a Design Technology project to make two wheeled vehicles from cardboard and wooden wheels. In the afternoon lots of the children made them into little trailers, attaching them to cars. They played with their vehicles on the ramps and also out in the playground.
We have also done a lot of phonics and 'tricky' (or should I say 'power word') practise this week! Please keep up to date with reading and practising the words for our ice-cream challenge. I have logins for a spelling app, which I will give out next week, so that you can practise spelling as well as maths at home on tablets, laptops, or iPads.
Have a lovely weekend. See everyone next week.
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece
Hi all,
Apologies for the late 'blog' post.
We had a fabulous week last week, with a spectacular grand finale at the summer fair on Friday evening. I thoroughly enjoyed being soaked in the stocks (Ha ha ha)!!! It was so lovely to see everyone enjoying themselves, mixing with friends and just generally relaxing...the weather really helped too!
Last week in class we went on a 'soft toy' hunt in the field, wrote a description about the soft toy that we found and practised writing some of the letters, which we tend to get the wrong way round - a, d, b, g, e in particular! We also met Ms Collinge, our new teacher, who had prepared lots of lovely activities about caterpillars and butterflies, as well as a number hunt around the field. In the afternoon Ms Collinge joined us in our classroom, where she helped the children decorate fairy cakes, as well as just generally getting to know the class.
We learnt about churches in RE and even made some church buildings of our own.
We had another music session with Mrs Henderson-Wild, singing lots of songs from 'The Princess and the Pea'. We look forward to performing the songs for you at Rose Hill in the last week of term.
This week we are focussing on different 'journeys', thinking about different modes of transport.
After this week we will not be sticking any more work in the children's learning journals, because we need to finalise these books for sending home! Any further work over the final two weeks will be sent home at the end of each day. This Friday will also be the last day for Tapestry posts too! I need to download all the files as PDFs and save them onto a CD for you to keep. This obviously takes a little time, so I need a cut off point. I have loved the fantastic two way communication through Tapestry and I would like to thank you all for your amazing participation and support this year. Rest assured that even though we are going to have a lot of fun in the last two weeks, we will still be teaching your children right up until the very last day. Even if there will be no physical evidence, there will still be a lot of learning taking place.
Have another great week. Fingers crossed for England in the semi final on Wednesday evening.
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
It has been another amazing week of sunshine, so the class have been thoroughly enjoying the water wall and many other outdoor activities too. We have also been working hard on our phonics; practising all of the digraphs and some tricky words like 'all', 'said' and 'are'. Digraphs are quite tricky - two letters making one sound, but the more the children practise, the better they will become at just knowing them rather than reading them as the individual phonemes "a-r", or "i-g-h". Saying the rhymes really help them to remember. I am also trying to encourage the children to 'Fred in their heads' as much as possible, which means sound out the words in their heads so that they can say the whole word outloud. It makes reading much more enjoyable and fluent. By the time they have read outloud "The f-l-u-f-f-ee fluffy c-a-t cat was s-t-u-c-k stuck u-p up a t-r-ee tree" they have forgotten what the first part of the sentence was. Obviously if it is a two syllable word, or an unfamiliar word we would then encourage the children to sound it out then, so that they could try and work out what it might be. An example word might be "midnight". They might sound out "m-i-d" and then "n-igh-t" and then say the whole word "midnight". I hope that makes sense without being too waffled!
As well as more writing, reading, RE, PE and maths (and learning through lots of play, as ever) the children have practised and performed their assembly. I thought that they were amazing! I was very, very proud of their confidence. It was lovely to see so many of you at school this morning and I do hope that you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed putting it together.
Next week we will be using the story "We're going on a bear hunt" as a starting point for our activities. It is going to be an exciting week, because on Thursday all the children will be spending the morning in Year 1 with their new teacher. I know that she is really excited to meet them. It is also the summer fair on Friday. We could still love some parent help on 'our' game "throw the welly". I will be able to man this game, but if I could have a bit of help for 15 mins at a time that would be good. Please let me know on Monday.
Have a wonderful sunny weekend. Keep safe in the sun!
Best wishes
Mrs Preece
Hello again
This week we have been reading, writing, painting and drawing all about the story ‘Jack and the Flum Flum Tree’. We have also been practising our assembly; speaking and acting out parts from the story. We were very impressed that some children could remember their lines after only one practise.
We learnt all about the different houses that people live in during our RE lesson about ‘special places’. We then talked about which places we like to go to where we feel safe and happy. After circle time the children had a go at making houses out of different materials, or drawing / painting a house.
We have been practising our number bonds to ten. We had a competition one afternoon to see who could be the quickest at finding and writing down all the number bonds to ten. Everyone put in loads of effort and tried really hard.
We have loved watching our froglets this week, now that they have legs and are turning green. They will soon be ready to hop away!
On Tuesday half of the class went into year 1 to learn, whilst the other half stayed and helped the nursery children during their first ‘stay and play’ session. They were fantastic role models and made the little ones feel really welcome. We will be doing the same again on Wednesday this coming week, so the other half of the class will get the chance to help out with the younger children.
On Thursday Mrs Gaynor came to say hello again. The children were an absolute credit to you and behaved impeccably. Thursday was also the day that we had our ‘lock down’ practise. Everyone was really sensible and sat quietly in our chosen spot for 15 minutes until Mrs Morton gave us the all clear.
Thanks for all the fantastic homework. Please encourage your children to practise their words this weekend (if they have chosen to speak in our assembly). Also see if you can logon to mathletics and let your child play a game or two on there. You can use that as the technology or maths homework if you want.
We hope to see you next Friday morning for our class assembly. Don’t forget your tissues!
Have a great weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello there
I cannot believe that we are now a week into our final half term! It only seems like five minutes ago that your children were just starting their journey in school.
We started the week sharing lots of news about our holiday. The children all did a piece of writing about what they got up to. We have also started on our topic of Adventures with the story of 'Jack and the Flum Flum Tree'. The children have been counting forwards and backwards to twenty, they have been finding number sentences for particular numbers and they have been painting and drawing pictures to do with the story. Today all the children have written a list of things that granny had in her patchwork sack.
We also had a visit from a lady from the music service who is going to be helping us learn some songs about the story 'The Princess and the Pea', which we will be able to show you before we break up. On Friday 29th June it is our class assembly, so over the next two weeks we will be learning some lines and some songs to share with you.
We are pleased that our tadpoles have finally developed legs, so the children have been watching the little froglets swimming about.
For homework this half term I have given everyone a grid of suggested activities, which you can tick off each week. There is an activity and an extra challenge, just like last time. I will give another set of words to learn for the ice-cream challenge, but I just haven't had chance to do that yet. They will be attached in the bags next week.
Everyone is very excited that it is Marple Carnival this weekend. Hopefully I will see you tomorrow, either in the parade, or in the park. Let's hope that it stays dry for the weekend. Have a wonderful time.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
What fantastic weather we've had this week. It has been amazing to be out in the sunshine every day. On Monday we went for another bug hunt around the field. There were lots of insects and creepy crawlies to see, because it is now warmer. Afterwards the children played in the field, making dens, daisy chains and playing tig.
This is a huge birds nest that a few of the children made out of grass, flowers and sticks.
In maths we have been counting forwards and backwards. The children are still struggling a little with 15, 13, 12 and 11 when they count backwards, so this is something that you could practise at home. We have made patterns, sequenced and ordered numbers, played large scale snakes and ladders and kept score playing a beanbag throwing game outside.
There have been lots of great imaginary games. The children have used money to pay for fruit and vegetables in the shop and also made a train outside which they wrote lots of signs for. They even made some signals for the track.
We had our trip to Stockport Town Hall to take part in singing with a number of other schools. It was a good experience for the children to see children from other schools, and of course a coach ride is always an adventure!
Yesterday we talked about the royal wedding by showing pictures of Prince Harry and Megan and taking part in various 'wedding' activities.
Next week is Active Week. We will be joining in with lots of sporty activities during the week, as well as going on our trip to 'Nest in the Woods' and sports day. Because the weather forecast is so good, it should be a really fun last week of term.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone. If you get the chance tomorrow, do go along to the 'Marple Makes' artisan craft fair at The Railway pub. I might see you there!
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Good evening everyone,
I will be updating the blog tomorrow. Hopefully you have all found the sports day colour letter in your child's bag. If for any reason you cannot find it, I will be uploading that information onto Tapestry tomorrow too.
Until tomorrow.
Bye for now!
Mrs Preece
Hello again.
Well this week the weather hasn't been quite as glorious as it was last weekend, but never the less we have enjoyed lots of time outdoors in our playground. Miss Whittleworth brought the chicks back from their mini holiday on Tuesday...and they had grown so much. They were already gaining their adult wing and tail feathers. They were also eating and drinking so much! We have enjoyed watching them play on the floor lots this week. We put out branches for them to hop over and perch on top of, as well as a lego trailer train, which a couple of them had rides in.
We have written about them and even done some addition and number bonds to 10, using the chicks to count. ie: We have ten chicks, so if we put three in here, how many will we have in the other basket? I encouraged the children to use their fingers to work out the number bond questions. We also did 1 more and 1 less maths using number lines. Some children were even able to find '2 more' than a number.
The week has gone super fast, but it is now time to say goodbye to our chicks. Their new home will be with Mrs Wilson, because she has a chicken coop. She will keep us updated on their progress and we should be able to enjoy eggs laid by our very own chickens in the future.
We have pleasure to announce that Robin won the prize for the best book reveiw in Reception, so well done Robin.
Next Thursday afternoon we have our trip to the Nursery Rhyme Concert at the Town Hall in Stockport. This is an annual event and it is always good fun. Because our special song is The Grand Old Duke of York, we will be practising this over the next few days and also making headdresses to wear when we are at the concert. The other songs that we will be singing include: Miss Polly had a Dolly, Twinkle Twinkle, This Old Man, London Bridge is Falling Down, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Ring a Ring of Roses, Here we go around the Mulberry Bush and various other traditional rhymes. If you are interested in coming with us we have space for 8 other adults. Please let us know asap and we will confirm with you. We will also need some helpers for the trip to Nest in The Woods the following week (Wed), so again we have 8 extra places. Please let us know as soon as you can thanks.
Finally, thank you for all the amazing homework. It is fantastic looking in the books and on Tapestry each week. This weekend please complete either an activity off the grid, or think about following up one of the activities from this week. If you get the chance please sing our nursery rhyme songs as much as you can to prepare the children for next week.
Thanks again for your endless support.
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece & Miss Whittleworth
We have had an amazing week in Reception. On Monday we had a delivery of ten eggs, which have now all hatched into very cute chicks. We have 7 girls and 3 boys. We have had so much pleasure watching science in action. We have completed writing, drawing, painting and maths relating to the chicks, as well as being extremely excited all week.
On Monday we also had a new lady come in to help in class. She is lovely and her name is Catherine, so if you see comments in reading diaries etc from Catherine, then this is who she is.
Things really are starting to come together for the children in the class now. They are really trying to use their phonics with their writing and the children’s reading has improved tremendously.
Next week we will continue to watch the chicks growing and changing. We will be able to hold them and watch them running about on the carpet. They are being collected next Friday. This weekend Miss Whittleworth will be looking after them, making sure that they have enough food and water.
Our tadpoles are also coming along. There are about thirty or forty which have survived so far. They are getting bigger every day and I’m sure will start to turn into froglets very soon.
Thanks you to everyone who has been completing the homework off the grid. It is fascinating to read in the homework books, as well as on Tapestry. The children are working really hard in and out of school. I have a very privileged job being able to see how far they have come in just 8 months.
It looks like it is going to be a glorious bank holiday weekend, so enjoy yourselves in the sunshine. Keep reading, as ever.
Please also find a design competition from Stockport Schools Sports Partnership to have a go at completing over the weekend if you want.
Reception and KS1
Design a sports stadium, or a sporting theme for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia. This should be a coloured drawing showing the colours / theme of this years commonwealth games. The winning design in Stockport will be made into a lego stadium and exhibited at Legoland.
The winner and their family will also be invited to attend the awards ceremony at Stockport Plaza in July.
The drawing needs to be handed in to Mrs Preece on Tuesday 8th May (next Tuesday).
Good luck and enjoy
Best Wishes
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth.
Hello again,
We have been learning the story of The Hungry Caterpillar this week. The children helped to read the story, they drew pictures of the caterpillar and the foods, they made the life cycle of a caterpillar and they watched a video which showed a butterly emerging out of a chrysalis. Today, as a finale, they had the chance to taste some of the foods that the caterpillar ate and they wrote down what each food tasted like. Some people thought that the pickled gherkins were 'yukky', whilst others thought they were 'tasty'. Almost everyone loved the chocolate cake and the watermelon.
In maths we looked at one more and one less, heavy and light and also the children were all given a number and asked to investigate it. They could make the number with that many bricks, count out that many stones or jewels, as well as actually writing number sentences about that number.
During the week I have been working one to one with children; listening to them read, watching them write a sentence and also finding out how they solve some maths problems. It has been time consuming, but very informative. It will help me give them that final push in the next couple of months, before I write their EYFS profile. In a couple of weeks there is an external moderator coming in to look at my current judgements and she will make sure that they are all fair and accurate. This happens in Reception, Year 2 and year 6 in primary schools.
There is not a parents evening before the end of term, but over the next few weeks I will try and talk to you individually just to keep everyone informed.
I hope that you have a great weekend. Please choose an activity off the homework grid (thank you for the lovely work that everyone did last week!) If you practise anything else then please could you look at the digraphs, as the children are struggling with them -
ay, ow (as in blow), ar, or, igh, ou (as in shout), or and ir.
Thank you and see you next week
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Welcome back everyone. It's been a great start to the half term with some lovely sunny weather, which has meant lots of activities in our outside area.
Our topic is 'All Creatures Great and Small', so we have been investigating and hunting for bugs in the field and in the playground. Our tadpoles have returned from their holiday (thank you so much Amy's family for taking care of them), so we are looking forward to watching them turn into frogs.
We have been writing holiday news and facts about minibeasts in literacy and in maths we have been exploring teen numbers, as well as making tallies and bar charts.
It has been Mrs Preece's BIG birthday this week, so we celebrated with cake and candles.
Because we are now in the Summer term and are starting to prepare for year 1, we have put a homework grid into the homework books for your children to complete one activity a week. If you have any questions about this then please don't hesitate to ask.
Have a wonderful sunny weekend. If you get the chance then there is a family fun day at Marple Cricket Club on Sunday, which everyone is invited to. This is to celebrate the end of The Marple Festival of Sport. If you do go, have a lovely time.
See you all on Monday.
Mrs Preece & Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
What a whirlwind half term that has been. I cannot believe that it is Easter already!
In Reception we had a lovely, fun week to end the term. We started by making chocolate crispy nests on Monday; using the cooking activity to talk about the science of heating something up to melt it into a liquid and cooling it down to reverse the process, so that it becomes a solid once again (butter and chocolate.)
We have had fun colouring our ‘Jelly Bean Prayers’ and counting out the jelly beans into our own bags. Tying up the bags involved lots of fine motor practise too!
We also had the whole week to work towards our Spelling Bee competition, practising the ‘tricky words’ from the ice-cream challenge. We played treasure hunt games outside and also had little writing / spelling competitions inside. The children impressed me, because most of the class were only making one or two little mistakes. This is amazing! By the end of the week we had six children who had written the different words correctly every time. The children had a head to head competition and our overall winners were Mason and Amy. It was a very close competition though, so very, very well done to our 6 finalists and of course to all of the children, who eagerly had a go and tried their best.
However, the highlight of the week had to be making the wooden crosses! Most of the children had never experienced using a saw before. It was exciting, because it was something potentially dangerous. The whole class were sensible and followed Miss Whittleworth’s instructions brilliantly. They were all super proud of the crosses that they had sawed themselves.
Yesterday, as our finale to the term, we enjoyed the Easter Service up at church. This was a relaxed and informal celebration, which everyone enjoyed. Thank you so much for coming along to join in.
Have a wonderful Easter holiday whatever you get up to. I look forward to seeing you all on the 16th April for our new and very exciting topic of ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. The half term will be another busy one, with a Forest School trip to Adlington Woods and also a Nursery Rhyme concert trip to Stockport Town Hall, both in May. I will send out letters in the first week back.
Bye for now
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Good evening,
First of all I cannot believe that next week we break up for Easter. Where on earth has this half term gone? Anyway, after a very hectic few weeks, next week will be full of Easter excitement and fun - from Easter egg hunts, an ice cream party, Easter church services and special celebration assemblies to chocolate crispy nest making and Easter art!
This week we have watched our frogspawn become tadpoles, written about Easter, acted out the Easter story and even had special PE with the year 5 Sports Ambassadors leading the lesson. The children said it was "really cool".
We had a 'tricky word' competition, where 12 children got absolutely all of the words / spellings correct. Wow! All the other children had a really good try and made very few mistakes. I am an extremely proud teacher. We have also worked on the digraphs ar, or, air, ou and oy.
I did look at everyone's homework, so thank you so much for your fabulous book reviews. We didn't manage to give everyone their books back today. (It was all a bit busy at home time!) The homework is a selection of Easter challenges, which can be done anytime before we come back on the 16th April, so there is no rush. I will put the challenges on Tapestry, so that you can all see and will give out the homework books on Monday.
Have a great weekend. See you all on Monday.
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
Another week has flown by! I hope that everyone enjoyed their mother’s day on Sunday. I know I enjoyed the sunshine and being pampered. Miss Whittleworth brought a tank full of frogspawn in on Tuesday, so we have been learning about life cycles; looking at frogspawn to frogs and seeds to plants. The frogspawn is developing on a daily basis. Exciting stuff! We have also planted broad beans, which we planted in clear pots, so that we can see their roots and stems growing.
At the end of the week we explored capacity; making potions and looking at how much liquid we could fit into different containers.
In phonics we have been looking at the tricky words - they, go, no, so and all. We have been practising digraphs ar, or, and air as well.
Thank you so much for the lovely belated Fairtrade homework. I really enjoyed reading it all. It was great to see how much Fairtrade product you could find in the supermarkets.
It was lovely to see many of you at the open afternoon yesterday, as we celebrated World Book Day. It was brilliant to see all the children dressed up. Everyone was very excited.
I am thrilled to say that lots of progress has been made in reading and phonics. It seems that for a lot of children things are starting to click into place. What a wonderful privilege it is to observe.
Next week is our penultimate week before Easter. We will be learning about the Easter story and making a start on many Easter related crafts.
Enjoy your weekend everyone.
From Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
HOMEWORK
This weekend I have either attached a book / story review for your child to complete - a picture ad a few words, or I have written something for them to concentrate on. The homework is optional!
The most important things are to just listen to your child read and share stories with them.
Have fun!
Hi there,
We have had a lovely, normal week, getting busy with lots of mother's day activities, which have included: writing, painting, adding, finding one more and one less, as well as phonics. Our sounds this week were 'ay', 'igh' and 'oo'.
For homework this week please complete the activities about Fair Trade, as it is still Fair Trade fortnight. If your child wants to do any more, then practising one more and one less, measuring, as well as reading would be great things to focus on.
Have a wonderful Mother's Day all you mums. See you next week.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth x
Dear all,
Well what an eventful and unusual week that was! It was a funny start to our new half term. I hope that you managed to enjoy some fun in the snow with your friends and families, but above all else managed to stay safe and well.
Although we only had three days in school this week, we did manage to learn quite a lot. Our new topic is all about ‘Growing’, particularly focussing on plants and also…dinosaurs! This is linked in particular to the books ‘How to grow a dinosaur’ and ‘Jack and the beanstalk’.
As it is Fair Trade Fortnight, we started out on Monday with a whole school assembly all about Fair Trade. The children were interested and remembered lots of facts from this, so the homework that I put in the children’s books links to Fair Trade. Because you don’t have the homework books, I will leave that for next week now.
We investigated seeds and talked about what they might grow into. We also talked about size and colour and whether or not the seeds looked anything like the plant that they would grow into. In maths we all spent time practising, recognising numbers, finding 1 more and 1 less than a number between 1 – 20 and also writing some addition and subtraction number sentences. Ironically on Tuesday and Wednesday when it was snowing, we spent time looking at the symbols of spring and how the Hindu faith celebrates the arrival of spring through the Holi Festival!
We did use the snow as an opportunity to talk about melting and freezing. All the children seem to understand this well and explored melting ice and snow in the mud kitchen by mixing it with water or letting it stand in the sunshine.
So for homework this weekend please can you draw and write about your adventures in the snow over the last couple of days. I will stick anything into your homework book next week. Because we learnt and practised the sounds ‘ow’ (as in grow) and ‘ee’ this week, you could always practise these a little more, as well as continuing to practise reading and writing the tricky words: ‘the’, ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘her’ and ‘was’.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend. Stay warm. We look forward to seeing you on Monday for a normal, and hopefully slightly warmer, week.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hi everyone,
I'm sorry to say that Mrs Preece has been poorly this week (from Wednesday), but the children have still been enjoying learning and been hard at work with Miss Whittleworth and the supply teacher.
Earlier in the week the children tasted pancakes and then wrote down their favourite topping. They have also been tasting Chinese food and moving like a Chinese Dragon to complete our celebrations of the Chinese New Year. The children have worked really hard with their writing this week. Wow all those phonics sessions are starting to really pay off!
With Miss Whittleworth's support the children have been practising their technology skills; making 3D moving minions, by using an app on the iPad. As ever there has been lots of outdoor exploration and play, which this week has also included learning how to make and then test out paper aeroplanes. The children have also been counting, writing numbers, making valentine cards and playing musical instruments.
We hope that you all have a lovely half term week, whatever you get up to. Please feel free to share any activities, particularly 'acts of kindness' on Tapestry over the holiday. If you get the chance, go to see the Chinese New Year celebrations this weekend in Manchester. The children have watched video clips of the dragon parade, so it would be great to see it in reality.
Keep practising your ice-cream challenge 'tricky' words and reading on a regular basis. Most importantly have fun and relax with your families.
Next half term will be a busy, but short half term. Our topic is 'Growing', where we will be learning about growing plants and seeds and even...dinosaurs! In the first week back we will be enjoying learning about the Hindu Spring Festival of Holi, St David's Day and also enjoying World Book Day.
See you on the 26th February.
From Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Preece
Gong Hei Fat Choy
Even though Chinese New Year is not actually until 16th February, we have started to learn about the Chinese celebrations and also the story of the Chinese horoscope. There have been chopsticks to try to use, which have been quite challenging, but it is a really good fine motor activity to try and pick pom-poms up and move them into another container. We set up a Chinese restaurant, where the children could take orders, say what food they want and also pay for their meal. Because the class is very imaginative, they have really enjoyed this role play.
We have also been writing short sentences, counting and writing numbers, practising painting Chinese writing, measuring Chinese dragons which we made from construction materials, as well as making Chinese dragons and snakes out of folded paper.
We also learnt about how Chinese children receive red envelopes filled with money at New Year. This has inspired counting a certain number of treats (white chocolate buttons) into our own red envelopes.
We learnt about where China is in the world and that, like many other countries in the world, it has some volcanoes. Following on from looking at volcanoes on the IWB, we tried a science experiment to create an erupting volcano.. The children really seemed to enjoy this activity.
We have had some extremely cold weather this week, so the children have also been investigating ice, seeing which environments are the best to make the ice melt.
In phonics we have learnt digraphs: ir and air. We also looked at tricky words and practised previously learnt sounds.
HOMEWORK
Because it is coming up to Chinese New Year, Shrove Tuesday and Valentine’s Day perhaps your child could do something at home related to any of these things. It could be a picture, a card, some writing, counting, or even cooking. Feel free to share anything that you do over the weekend in the home school book, or on Tapestry, even if it is completely unrelated to these themes.
Have a fabulous weekend once again
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello
This week the children have been introduced to subtraction / taking away. They have used practical objects and also number lines to work out simple subtraction problems. They have learnt the minus symbol and tried to remember the equals symbol. This was a bit tricky, but we will be going over this much more in the coming months. All of the children had a go at recording their number sentences on paper or white boards.
I also introduced the children to ‘odds’ and ‘evens’. Again this is quite a hard concept top grasp at first, but at least they are having a go at recognising the pattern of what is odd and what is even.
In phonics we have been going over previously learnt digraphs: ee, oo, ay and igh. 
The children are getting better at oral blending, so thank you if you have been helping at home.
Many children have started writing words independently now during choosing time. They are regularly writing their names and also labelling pictures that they draw. This is fantastic! Because this week has been all about pirates, we have been busy making maps and also letters from and to pirates. It has been an exciting week.
HOMEWORK
Please see the attached phonics / reading and writing homework, if your child would like to have a go. I have also attached the icecream challenge, which are the 'tricky' high frequency words which we are learning. Please keep practising at home whenever you can.
It was fantastic to see you all this week in our meetings. Thanks so much for coming and supporting your child's learning so well.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hi all
The children have been busy exploring the weight of different objects this week. They found it quite difficult to say whether something was heavy or light. The majority of children thought that things were heavy if they were big, which isn’t always true. We will continue to work on this over the coming weeks.
We also had a look at money; counting out pennies and finding how 2p is the same as two pennies, 5p is the same as five pennies and 10p is the same as 10 pennies. It is also a hard concept to understand and it is not necessary to understand it at this stage, but we gave the children the opportunity to explore it!
It phonics we have been going over previously learnt sounds, trying hard to blend them into words. The sounds that the children seem to forget are: ‘th’, ‘ng’, ‘nk’ and the ‘oo’ which makes an ‘u’ sound some children have been writing sentences and words independently and others have been reading words and finding the matching picture or object. We have all been practising handwriting of numbers and some letters (particularly those anti-clockwise ones.)
The children have had PE twice this week and we have been singing animal songs and learning a little bit more about trust through bible stories. Following on from learning about ‘Nowruz,’ last week, we jumped over a pretend fire (like the Iranian people do) and said what we want to get better at this year.
I have also done a phonics assessment this week and I’m thrilled at the progress the children have madev in just a couple of months.
HOMEWORK
I have put a particular homework in the children’s books this week based on their own individual needs.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone
Following on from our amazing trip last week, this week has been all about zoo animals and the story ‘Dear Zoo’. We have been reading it, acting it out and re-telling it, as well as starting to write our own sentences about it.
I have been working 1:1 with the children to find out exactly where they are at the moment with their phonics, reading, writing independently and numbers (recognition and counting). I can see areas that we now need to work on. We need to re-address the children’s handwriting - practising letter formation particularly letters like a, o, d and g. A lot of children are forming them clockwise rather than anticlockwise. This is a bad habit to get into, as it will affect their joined up writing in the future. I also need to help the majority of children with blending letters into words. We will therefore be spending next week’s phonics sessions doing this, rather than learning new sounds.
This week the children learnt new digraphs (two letters sitting together / special friends) sounds:
oo (making an ‘u’ sound), ee, ay
In maths we are focussing on the teen numbers, as many children were unsure of the numbers 12 - 20. I have explained place value and how the one in a teen number is one lot of ten and that the other number are the units ie: 13 is one lot of ten and three units.
We had two lots of PE this week; once with Mr G and once with Mrs Preece. The children are getting really good at following instructions and remembering what they learnt the week before. All our PE is based on fundamental movement and balance skills.
In RE we looked at the Iranian festival of Nowruz, which is the festival of Spring. The children acted out the Nowruz story and then we talked about seasons and created ‘season trees’.
HOMEWORK
I have written in everyone’s book an individual homework activity for this weekend, based on their particular needs.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
PS: Apologies for the paint on jumpers. We only used a little bit of paint, but they seemed to get it everywhere. It is washable children's paint though, so will wash out. Sorry!
Hi everyone,
The blog is a day early, because of our exciting trip tomorrow.
This week we have been looking at halving and doubling with numbers. The children found it quite challenging, so we will be spending quite a bit of time in the future playing halving and doubling games. There are lots of fun activities we can do to help with their learning.
We have been writing about our favourite animal and finding out facts about animals. The children have been trying so hard with their writing this week. It has been absolutely amazing to see.
Today they wrote what they wanted to get better at this year. At first they were saying things like “I want to be a doctor” and “I want to be a Power Ranger”. We had a chat and I told them to think about what they could learn from us this year. They then said things like; “Skipping better”, “Reading”, “Counting to 101” etc. They then wrote their idea down. A lot of the children copied some of my scribed ideas, but I was still very impressed!
I will try and post pictures on Tapestry of our zoo trip over the weekend. Have a fabulous time and I will see you on Monday.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all had an amazing Christmas holiday. Thank you once again for the very generous gifts and cards. Miss Whittleworth and I were overwhelmed by your generousity.
We have exploded back into school life with a bang. During our wow week we have been drawing, painting and writing about our 5 books, not to mention enjoying lots of role play and discussion about our favourites and why we like them.
We have also re-capped phonics Set 1 sounds, paying attention to digraphs: sh, ch, nk and ng. Today we have had a full on day of 'tricky' words; saying them, singing them and chanting them. We then wrote our new words in our phonics books. You will find the sounds and words in your child's home/school book to practise with them.
I have noticed that in general the children's writing has improved. Today we were looking back in phonics books with the children and seeing just how far they have progressed since September.
We are looking forward to next week's trip to Chester Zoo. We are setting off at 8.30, so the children will need to be in school bright and early at 8 - 8.15 on Friday, so that they can go to the toilet and put on their high viz jackets before going to the coach. It is a full day, mostly outdoors, so please remember coats, hats, scarves and gloves.
Please remember to send back the slip for parent's evenings as soon as possible, so I can try and book your slot as close to what you request as I can.
Have a great weekend
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Dear all,
Sorry for this late and lengthy blog.
With only seven school days until we break up for Christmas it has been very festive and sparkly this week. On Monday morning we were very surprised to have a magical recording on my laptop of some reindeer, who were dancing on our carpet area. This must have been picked up on our classroom webcam over the weekend!!! I have posted the video to Tapestry, so that you can have a look!
During the week we completed our 2018 calendars and wrote messages in our Christmas cards. We also practised for our nativity and dressed up in our costumes! Everyone looks amazing! Because of the recent freezing weather, we have been exploring how water freezes and ice melts. In RE we finished our 'What is Christmas?' topic by talking about what we have learnt about the Christmas story.
We have been practising our phonics with lots of games and competitions and have also learnt the sound 'ng'. We have also been counting forwards and backwards to 20 on a regular basis indoors and outdoors.
On Tuesday the children impressed me by walking sensibly up to All Saints' Church to watch the KS1 nativity performance. They also sat twice in assembly on Friday, whilst we practised the Carol Service and also for the celebration assembly. What amazing superstars they are. Everyone thoroughly deserved their pot of gold sticker on Friday.
Next week, although only two days, will be extremely busy. On Monday morning we are walking up to Church for a last rehearsal of the nativity and the Carol Service. There will be no PE on Monday afternoon, but we plan to have parachute games, dough disco and other physical activities and games. There might be a few prizes too! On Tuesday, not only is it Christmas jumper day (to wear with school uniform), but we have our Christmas party in the morning, so don't forget to bring party clothes in a named plastic bag for the children to wear for that. In the afternoon we will walk up to church. If we walk up a little bit earlier than the rest of school (1pm), we can get changed into our nativity outfits when we are at church. The children will wear their costumes over their school uniform if their shirt is white, or over their PE T-shirt if their school shirt is blue or yellow. (We have kept all their white PE T-shirts in named bags with their nativity costumes, so that is why they aren't in their PE bags!)
At the end of the Carol Service we will walk back to school wearing the costumes and then quickly change back in our classroom. It will then be time to go and enjoy the Christmas holidays!
Miss Whittleworth and I have had a wonderful term. We have enjoyed seeing how your children have grown, developed and flourished over the last couple of months. We can't wait to help them progress and to fly in the New Year.
Have a wonderful Christmas and thanks once again for all that you do to help us.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone. Many apologies but I will fill in this week's blog this weekend. Please bear with me and check the website either tomorrow or Sunday.
Thank you.
Mrs Preece
Hello everyone
It was lovely to see some of you today at our informal drop in. When I returned to the classroom it was a glitter fest (Miss Whittleworth and the children had been having so much fun with glitter and collage and cutting out snowflakes! I felt like I had missed out.)
We had the excitement of snow this morning, so the children had the opportunity to go out and enjoy the snow and ice for a while. They made a sleeping snowman and also are conducting an experiment to see if the water that they have left out in little containers will freeze over the weekend.
We have also been writing in our phonics books and also practising some tricky words for our spelling competition yesterday. Our phonics sounds this week were a re-cap of all plus the new sounds ‘th’ (because we only touched on it last week) and ‘qu’.
Our activities have all been very festive – Christmas card making, Christmas colouring, playing with the nativity set, bauble counting and 3D shape present wrapping. We have been learning the mathematical names for 3D shapes. We have learnt the names cube, cuboid, sphere, triangular prism, cone and pyramid.
As I mentioned on Tapestry, I have collected the homework books in now. Thanks so much for all the fantastic effort. Please continue to listen to your child read and over the next week keep going over the songs and any words that they might have in the nativity.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello,
Christmas has started with a vengeance in our classroom. We have tinsel, decorations, glitter, snowflakes and lots of wrapping paper.
The week has been spent happily indulging in lots of festive activities, like present wrapping in the elves workshop, writing recipes for reindeer food, matching presents to door numbers, as well as starting to practise for our nativity. We have been designing and making presents and also hole punching gift tags, which we have then written on. There have been festive words and tricky words to find in the pretend snow, then make using the plastic letters. We have practised counting with rolling the dice and playing a snowman version of ‘Beetle Drive’. This has involved lots of lovely turn taking and number matching. Outside the children have been drawing with chalk, mixing potions in the mud kitchen and using our imagination with small world and role play.
Phonics this week has included looking at, reading and writing tricky words, as well as learning the sounds; ‘x’ and ‘z’.and 'th'
We have been singing songs from our nativity and also have had a go at saying the speaking parts. Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Preece were very impressed by our fabulous clear voices.
HOMEWORK
Thank you for your support and encouragement with the number bonds and also practising ‘v’ and ‘w’ last week. This week please can you help your children practise their lines (if they have them) and also singing the songs as much as you can, so that the children are immersed in them. Also have a go at practising the tricky words:
we, be, you, my
Have a great weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hi again,
The children have been busy this week learning the Nativity Story and thinking about which parts they would like in our own “Our First Nativity” performance, which will be part of the carol service at Church on the last day of term. We have a lot of children who want to be dressed up as an angel, sheep, innkeeper, king etc, but do not want to speak, so that is absolutely fine. We don’t want anyone to be nervous or apprehensive about it. It will be really lovely.
Your child's part is in the homework book.
We do have quite a lot of costumes that have been used in previous years. A lot of them are home made, but do look cute. We could dress everyone in these, which is what we usually do, however I thought that I would give you the option to provide something if you wanted. It is entirely up to you, because as I say, we have costumes in school. If you want to provide an outfit please let me know, so that we know how many we need to gather ourselves. We will also need the costumes the week before, so that the children can do a dress rehearsal. I will video the dress rehearsal performance (even though it will be in our hall) as a keepsake for everyone and provide on a DVD, along with the Tapestry learning journey, at the end of the year.
This week we have also read the story of “Stick Man” and have been busy completing various maths, craft and writing activities based on the story.
In maths we have been looking at number bonds to 10 using numicon pieces. (Number bonds are the two numbers which, when added together, make 10. One very easy way of seeing number bonds to 10 is to use our own hands. We know that there are 10 fingers on our hands, so by bending some of them down and counting the straight ones and then the bent ones we can see out number bonds.
For homework I have attached an activity to find number bonds to 10 using fingers. How many different number bonds to 10 are there?
In phonics the children learnt: v, w, y They found writing the v and w difficult because they are sharp and pointy. Any practise at home with this letter pattern would be appreciated.
We are also going to try and learn to read and write the tricky words that we have been learning in class: I, the, me, go and no. Any practise of these words would also be much appreciated...but, as I always say, homework is not compulsory in Reception, so these are suggestions only.
If you are able to come and join us at the Christmas Fair tomorrow, I hope that you have a great time and that you have a really lovely weekend.
Best Wishes
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone
This week has been Anti-Bullying week and National Nursery Rhyme week, so we have been learning about treating each other kindly and knowing that it is OK to be different and to be ‘wonderful me’. We have learnt that we can say ‘No’ or ‘Stop’ if someone is doing something that we don’t feel comfortable with.
We have also learnt the nursery rhymes:
Bobby Shafto, Lavenders Blue, Wind the Bobbin Up and Hickory Dickory Dock.
Everyone has brought home a certificate tonight, because even if they have been off some of this week, we practised all the nursery rhymes again today.
The children learnt new digraphs (two letters sitting together / special friends) sounds:
sh, ch, ck
During the week we have had fun with weighing, counting, fun phonics games and putting on puppet shows. Today has been a lot of fun with our Pudsey Bear related activities - phonics and maths, as well as spotty facepainting too. We took part in an antibullying assembly and also went to watch our buddies in year 6 perform in a brass instrument concert. We all sat in the hall and behaved so well that Mrs Preece moved everyone to the sunshine.
Next week we will be starting to look at the Christmas Nativity - listening to the music, choosing children for parts etc. I will let you know a bit more detail at the end of the week.
HOMEWORK (You can do as much or as little as you feel is suitable for your child)
Because it has been nursery rhyme week, please can you draw your favourite nursery rhyme. If you want to recite the nursery rhyme and video it, then upload to ‘Tapestry’ that would be fantastic. However just a picture would be absolutely fine. Thank you.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone
This week we have been reading the books ‘Supertato’ and ‘Super Daisy’. Both of the books have a common theme - evil peas! We have participated in various maths and art activities based on peas and vegetables. These have included counting and adding peas, writing numerals down as we count, and making our own evil pea characters.. We have done a lot of ’hands on’ phonics where the children have been using the graphemes that they know to make words - real and alien words. These have included CVC words like: man, pig, dog and sun for real words and bik, jat, teb and dub as alien words. It has just got the children used to using two consonants with a vowel sandwiched between them.
Today we have learnt all about WW1 and why we wear a poppy at this time of year. The children were silent for 2 minutes to remember the soldiers.
The children learnt new sounds:
j, e, l, h and also the tricky words go, no
HOMEWORK (You can do as much or as little as you feel is suitable for your child)
Have a go at making up some real and some alien CVC words at home using the letters provided. You could cut them out and make words to then copy. The vowels should go between the other two letters and are in red.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hi again
This week we have been to church everyday except for Thursday. We joined in with lots of fun activities, lots of singing and also learnt about many different types of journeys. The people who helped at church were kind and friendly with the children. They had patience if we found anything tricky and they encouraged us.
In maths we have been exploring the number 5; counting out 5 objects, showing 5 fingers and writing the number 5.
We have also learnt all about making up rules through the RE story, ‘Moses and the 10 commandments’. The children enjoyed the story and then made some classroom rules, which are on display in the classroom.
We also had the very exciting opening of our new playground. We love the new water wall, but know that we need to wear waterproof clothes when playing with it. The pulley system is great and we have already spent many hours playing “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” on the trip trap bridge.
We have learnt a new sound and practised the sounds which we have learnt. The new sound this week was:
u, and some tricky words I, the, me
HOMEWORK
Nothing, but here are some nice suggestions of activities that you might like to do.
1. Go to the park and jump / shuffle through leaves
2. Have a lovely snuggly time listening to your favourite stories with your grown up
3. Watch TV in your pyjamas (in the middle of the day!!!!)
4. Help your grown up do some cooking
5. Play with your friends
6. Have a picnic in your living room
7. Dance to some music
8. Have fun
Feel free to read your book, count, practise your letters etc and share anything that you get up to on Tapestry, but you really do not have to, as it is your holiday!
Have a great time. We will see you on Tuesday 31st October.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello
Thank you everyone for your responses about your child’s abilities with ‘technology’. It is amazing what our 4 year olds can do with devices, apps and other technology. Thanks you also for your comments and posts in Tapestry. I love sharing the childrens’ learning with you and seeing what your children do in their own environment too. It creates a much more holistic picture of their ability. If you haven't yet activated your account to create a password on Tapestry please do so. I have put lots of photos and observations of your children, which I really want you to see. Please check your emails and have a look this weekend.
This week we have been reading the book about The Little Red Hen. We have read the story, re-told the story, acted out the story and also done some fabulous story maps and writing based on the book. I am extremely impressed with how much enthusiasm the children have for story telling and story creating. They are a very imaginative class. It is an absolute joy.
We have been exploring number; looking at numerals to 10 and the corresponding number of objects. We count all the time and sequence / order numerals regularly.
We have also continued our learning about being kind and helpful to people through the RE story, ‘Jesus heals the paralysed man’. The children enjoyed the story and then reflected on their own behaviour towards others.
As ever we have been practising our sounds. This week the children have been introduced to the graphemes:
g, o, c, k
Please continue to practise reading the graphemes we have learnt by reading, writing and making words up with them. I have included some more sheets to help with letter formation. The hardest part for the children is moving their pen in an anticlockwise direction for each letter, which you will see by the arrows on each of the letters. It is something which is really tricky for all children, but so very important for when they start to join their handwriting up. It is therefore better to learn the right way right from the start. Practise with home made streamers in the air, or toy wands. Bigger is easier in the beginning.
You are welcome to share anything else that you might get up to this weekend in your homework book, or on Tapestry, but you are not obliged to put anything in if you don’t want to.
Next week we will not have access to our playground at all, so please drop off and collect at year 1 door each day. We will have a fun filled week as it is church week - finishing with the Harvest service at Church on Friday afternoon.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello again,
It is the end of another busy week. Your children have worked so hard this week. We have been learning about ‘Heroes in our Community’, which have included postal workers, vets, dentists, lollipop men and doctors. We have been lucky enough to have had some visitors in school, including John the lollipop man, Dental Playbox and even Ella’s mum, who is a doctor. The children have been extremely well behaved with our visitors, so that shows me that they have learnt about appropriate behaviour and manners, which is great to see.
I have also been very proud when I have seen how quickly the children are picking up their phonics sounds. Other members of staff through the school have noticed and commented on how quickly the children are learning, particularly in phonics, so that is lovely to hear.
For the next two weeks we will be thinking about ‘Harvest’ and basing our learning and activities on the story of The Little Red Hen. The children will be learning how to re-tell the story off by heart and how to change it to make their own story. I will send a story map home, so that you can practise the story at home with your child. In the final week before half term it is church week, so we will be walking to All Saints’ Church each morning for activities there. If you are free to help with the walk either up to church for 9.30, or back from church at 10.30 - 11, then please let us know, as we need 12 adults (including myself and Miss Whittleworth) to walk with our class. You can either let us know ourselves, or at the office. Also that week our Reception playground will not be accessible. We are having our playground re-furbished that week, so there will be construction work taking place and it will be dangerous. Please can your children be dropped off and collected each day at the year one classroom door. THIS IS JUST THE WEEK OF 16th OCTOBER. I will remind you next week too.
Thank you so much for all the support you are giving your children with home activities and reading. The reading books may have text in them, but enjoying the pictures and talking about them is the most important thing at this stage. Please don’t worry if your child cannot read the words yet. Picking out the odd letter that they have learnt is all that is required for now. Please share any comments in the reading record and please make sure that the reading books are in the children’s book bag every day.
This weekend please could you share in the home school books, or on ‘Tapestry’ anything that your child can do which involves technology? This could be using remote controls, playing games on an iPad or tablet, using games consoles, or scanning shopping at the supermarket till…anything. This is an area of learning that we don’t see evidence of much in school, but we know that in this day and age most children are exposed to technology regularly at home. Your comments will form part of our assessment.
Have a wonderful weekend whatever you do.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hi everyone,
I can’t believe just how fast the weeks are flying. Your children have properly settled into school life now and seem much more confident in the classroom. The weather has been lovely this week so we have been able to get out and enjoy our outside area a lot more, which the children love.
This week has been all about chocolate!! We started out the week with a Michael Rosen story all about Chocolate Cake. There is a very funny video clip on You Tube of Michael Rosen actually reciting his poem if you want to have a look. He has such an expressive face. Anyway, whilst we were listening to the story, the chocolate cake that the teddy bears were about to eat, went missing “da da daaaa”! There were only crumbs left in its place. We all became detectives hunting around the room for the chocolate cake and the thief. The thief was never found, but the children certainly came up with lots of theories. We have done our own writing, decorating (and eating) iced biscuits, designed our own sweets and generally had a sweetastic week. My key objectives this week were trying to improve fine motor skills. We have used playdough and tweezers, played with small lego, had a go at weaving, sewing, threading, as well as painting, drawing, decorating on the letters and trying to write. A lot of children are finding it tricky to hold a pen or pencil, so lots of practise is important.
HOME ACTIVITY
I recommend that over the weekend you give your child lots of opportunities to ‘mark make’, whether it is in their book, on a blackboard, outside with paintbrushes and water. Encourage them to hold their pen, paintbrush, crayon or chalk correctly. Play lots of finger gym type exercises where they stretch and clench their fingers. Any practise will help. You could practise the letter sounds learnt this week, which are
m a s d t
Use our RWI rhymes for correct formation. I attach a sheet which the children can use if they want to help them with formation, but you could take photos of them doing bigger scale mark making and upload them onto ‘Tapestry’. If you haven’t yet activated your Tapestry account, please check emails for your
activation instructions. I have set most of you up. If there is a problem please let me know.
Please also have a look at your child’s reading book together. Please make a comment in the reading record, no matter how brief. We aim to change the books every week. Please have the reading book and record in their bags every day, so that we can look at it together whenever we have the opportunity.
Next week is all about “Everyday heroes”, so if any of you are nurses, doctors, police men or women etc and are possibly available any day to talk to the children, please let me know.
Thanks so much.
Enjoy your weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
PS: I am out of the classroom on Monday and Friday next week, but Miss Whittleworth will be in as normal alongside another teacher. I just thought you could let the children know, so that they aren't worried when I'm not here on Monday.
Another busy week has passed very quickly. The children have settled into a routine now and we are amazed at how well they are sitting on the carpet, putting on their own coats and getting their own lunches. What super stars!
We are continuing to teach the basic rules and routines, but have also been introducing counting activities, writing and sequencing this week following nursery rhymes and the three traditional tales - The Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
In phonics we have been concentrating on ‘Fred Talk’, rhyming and sounds in the environment. Next week, as well as continuing with this, we will introduce our first sounds - m, a, s and t.
In RE we talked about activities that we like to do with our families. The children said lots of different things, like “go to the park”, “reading stories”, “go to play centres” and “swimming” to name but a few.
Thank you so much for helping your child with rhyming. We really enjoyed looking at the homework and reading your ’silly soup’ rhyming ingredients.
This weekend, in your home/school book, please can you help your child to cut out and stick the enclosed Mr Men numerals in the correct order from 1 -10. See if they can recognise the numerals and ask them to place them in order before they (or you) stick them down. They can then draw the same number of spots, dots or lines under each numeral. Alternatively, once they have ordered the numerals, let your child show you ’that many’ fingers, coins, toys or any other small objects at home, so that they can practise their number - object correspondence. This homework not only ties in with the counting and ordering we have done at school, but also our sequencing activities too.
All in all it has been a brilliant week. It is great to see friendships developing and confidence growing.
Thank you for all your support.
Have a great weekend.
Mrs. Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone,
Well what a fantastic first few days it has been. The children have settled in amazingly well and have been an absolute joy to have in our class. We have spent the three days assessing the children through play; finding out what their strengths and weaknesses are, so that we can plan for their next steps. It has been fascinating to find out so much about them through talk and play.
Next week we will all be together, which will be great. Hopefully new friendships will develop and the children will settle into their new routine quickly. We will be talking about family in class next week, so if your children could bring a photo of someone in their family it would be great so that we can talk about them. We will be doing PE twice next week - on Monday and Tuesday, so please make sure they have a PE kit in school.
Don't forget next Friday is Open Morning, where you can come in and look at the class room and some of the things that they have been doing in the first week. Next Friday is also our picnic evening, so please get involved and come along for a fabulous evening of fun on the field.
Have a brilliant weekend. See you at 8.55 on Monday .
From Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
We are at the end of our penultimate week in Reception. Next week is going to be sad for us as staff, because we will be sad to be losing our delightful class, however we are going to make it a week to remember. There is going to be science and maths in the form of cake making and decorating (we will of course have to eat the cakes too!!!) We will have a Reception talent show and a party with games, dancing and prizes. We are also going to have a cinema time with popcorn too! We will go out on the field and do PE a couple of times. I hope that the final week will bring your children lots of happy final memories of Reception. There will be some writing and number and phonics, but it will all be wrapped up in a fun filled package! Please enjoy looking at your children's books from their year in Reception. they have learnt so much.
Have a fabulous weekend.
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth.
Hi everybody,
It has really been active week part 2 this week, with our sports day on Wednesday morning and the visit from an Olympic Athlete on Wednesday afternoon. We were so lucky to have glorious weather for both events and I got the feeling that all the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
For the rest of the week we have been writing thank you letters to 'Nest in the Woods', and creating portraits for the year 6 children to keep when they leave for high school. We have been practising counting forwards and backwards to and from 20, as well as creating our own 'one less and one more' number sentences. In RE we learnt all about Islam and woship in a Mosque. The children designed their own prayer mats and wrote out some rules for our classroom.
Next week we will be spending a little bit of time in year 1, as well as helping with the nursery children who will be starting in September. We will also be practising songs for the year 6 leavers celebration on Friday. In addition we are continuing to practise our phonics and numbers as often as we can, as well as choosing where to learn independently.
This evening you will have received your child's report, which I really hope you enjoy reading. Your children definitely deserve lots of praise. As I have said many times before, the class have consistently made progress with their learning over the year. They are a well mannered, polite and happy class, who are a credit to you.
Have a super weekend
All the best
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello again,
Its a really quick blog this week, so I apologise! What a busy and incredibly exciting week it has been. First of all there was the trip on Wednesday, which I'm sure everyone will agree was fantastic (despite the coach incident)! The children all loved the whole 'Forest School' adventure and we had brilliant weather which helped. The feedback from Mark and Adam, who ran it, was that our class were fantastic. Well done Reception.
On Thursday we had the transition morning where, yet again, the children were exceptional. Mrs Manning and Mrs Mylrea say that they could not believe how well behaved the whole class were. I am like a proud mum!
Then finally today...how brilliantly did the class do in the assembly. It was an utter joy. They were confident, spoke clearly, remembered their lines and performed their hearts out.
So have a lovely rest this weekend. Everyone has worked so hard.
See you next week for Sports Day and our Olympic Champion circuit on Wednesday. Don't forget if you haven't already brought in your sponsor forms, then you have until Monday...it is to support our UK athletes now and in the future.
Best Wishes
Mrs Preece & Miss Whittleworth
Hi there,
Despite the weather, we have still had a very enjoyable "Active Week". We started off on Monday morning with an exciting time in the field with Mrs Eva. In our Forest School session we made little houses for the elves and sat around the firepit. It was loads of fun. We took part in the infant festival which was run by year 5s. Team number 4 won a gold medal for their scores.
On Tuesday a dental nurse came in to show us how to look after our teeth. We learnt that fruit and vegetables are good for our teeth, but anything with sugar is bad for our teeth. We learnt that we should brush our teeth twice a day. We should also visit the dentist regularly too.
On Wednesday Sports Day was unfortunately cancelled because of the weather, but we made tasty milkshakes and also had PE with the year 6 children.
Today we went crazy with "crazy golf". Evelyn said "I absolutely loved it!"
What a lot of fun we had.
From all the children in Reception
Hi everyone,
It was so lovely to be back with the class and we have had a very busy week. The children have made boats, solved maths puzzles and problems and also done loads of writing! There has been a lot of fun too I hasten to add. At the beginning of the week it was really hot and sunny, so the children had stories outside in the shade of the tree and loved it when Mrs Preece sprayed them all with water. We did PE twice this week, preparing for our 'Active Week' next week.
In phonics we were using the sounds 'oy' and 'ir' to use in a sentence. We practised holding a sentence in our head before going away and writing it independently. We looked at shapes again, as well as weighing different things around the classroom to find out what different objects made the scales balance.
Thanks for all your fabulous homework. Don't forget that you can upload photos or comments to 'Tapestry' too. This weekend there is another spelling list to have a look at and also the children can choose an activity off the grid again.
Next week is 'Active Week' so we will have a full week of sporty activities. Remember to wear sports clothes all week and it is 'Forest School' first thing on Monday morning, so they will need waterproofs and wellies for that. On Monday they will also be taking part in an infant festival run by the year 5 children, and then on Wednesday it is Sports Day. In the homework books we have put a sheet with the different colour groups for reference.
If anyone is able to accompany us on our trip the following Wednesday (5th July), please let us know next week.
Have a fabulous weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the final half term. Even though I haven’t been in class this week, I feel as though I have been there, because I have been kept updated by Mrs Tomney and Miss Whittleworth. What a lot of fabulous learning you have been doing. Last night I looked at your homework. Well done for such a lot of writing. What a long way the children have come.
This week the children started off their new topic – ‘Adventures’ by reading ‘The Snail and the Whale’, so a lot of their writing has been based on this. They then moved on to the story of ‘Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs’, which has introduced lots of learning opportunities. The children have been exploring maths games based on searching for treasure and being very creative too. The children also started to get ‘year 1’ ready by joining the KS1 children in the big playground at 10.00, to eat their snack and have a ten minute play time.
This weekend we are sending home the words for the children to practise and try to learn for our class assembly. There is also the new homework grid too. Remember that the grid is there to help you and your child, but if you feel that practising ‘tricky’ words or counting activities are more beneficial, then please feel free to let them do that instead.
I have also attached the Summer 2 newsletter for your perusal.
Don’t forget the carnival this weekend. I will also be there, dressed in a Disney themed outfit. Looking forward to a fabulous weekend.
The best news of all (I hope) is that I will be back on Monday. My jury duty has finished one week early, so everything will be back to normal.
Bye for now
Mrs Preece, Miss Whittleworth and Mrs Tomney
What a lovely sunny week it has been! Our caterpillars have emerged into beautiful butterflies, so we set them free into the garden. We have also had lots of fun and learning outside - doing our phonics,
writing and digging up our potatoes.. The children have also had amazing fun outside; squirting the phonics sounds / letters with the syringes (brilliant in this heat)!
Over the holidays I really want the children to have fun and enjoy themselves., before their last half term in Reception I know many of you are going on holiday, so do have a wonderful time.
Next term will be all about ‘Adventures’, which will involve pirates, animals, journeys and the childrens’ own adventure to year 1 for transition. My main focus before the end of June will be writing; making sure that the children are using their set 1 and 2 sounds, as well as tricky, high frequency words to write with. A lot of the children are not always using the sounds they know when they are writing
independently and they just need a reminder. (I do appreciate that they are only 4 and 5 years old.)
If they do any writing at home please encourage them to look at their letter and sound cards, or can you write them out on a piece of paper, so that they can refer to them. I have had these digraphs up in the classroom to help the children.
Some common mistakes are:
I am a gil. I lic Jim. I hav brawn her.
This should be: I am a girl. I like Jim. I have brown hair.
The children have learnt the sounds: air ir igh ou
Some children have learnt split digraphs to make a-e and i-e too, so please encourage them to use these sounds in their writing. If they are the wrong sounds, but the ones they have learnt, then this is still ok. ie: broun rather than brown. To meet the ELG in writing the children need to write
simple sentences using the phonic sounds they have learnt. I know that some children can already do this, but there are others who are not quite there. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have stuck in a sheet if the children want a go.
Have a brilliant holidays
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Hello everyone,
It has been a brilliant week. I have back to fighting fit, which is great as I missed everyone when I was off ill last week. This week the children have done lots of singing nursery rhymes in readiness for our concert trip. We also had a special visit from the Bishop in Uganda. The children came up with some brilliant questions to ask the bishop and his wife, so I hope they learnt a little bit about the differences between our life and theirs. We came to a class conclusion that there are good things and not so good things happen in Uganda and in England. They may be different but it doesn't matter where in the world we live, as long as we have our health, our family and friends, we are lucky.
We have been writing about the sea witch stealing Mrs Preece's voice and today we found out and wrote lots of facts about snakes. We were learning the story of the 'Gold Giving Serpent' in RE, so we investigated snakes for the day.
We have had two PE sessions this week and on both occasions the children were highly praised for their amazing behaviour. Fantastic! It makes me so proud. The children also behaved amazingly at the Nursery Rhyme concert on Thursday...although I think the highlight of the trip was travelling on the top deck of a double decker bus!
As you will see from the letter this evening I have unfortunately been called for Jury duty on the 12th June. I am currently liaising with the supply teacher (she was the teacher who came in on Friday when I was ill) to discuss planning and timetables etc. Hopefully everything will be as normal as it can be for the children, who continue to be absolute stars. I'll keep in touch with school, Tapestry and Miss Whittleworth throughout the week, so that I know what is happening. They will barely have time to miss me. Hopefully I don't get a case that is too frightening!
Possibly our butterflies will hatch next week and we are going to start thinking about our class assembly (who is saying what etc). We will also be able to pick our home grown potatoes and cook them!
Have a great weekend
Best Wishes
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
Good afternoon,
First of all I am so sorry that I have been off for two days this week. Unfortunately I have some kind of virus and have not felt not very well at all. I have also completely lost my voice...not even a croak! I might tell the children next week that I am like Ariel, the little mermaid, and I gave my voice to Ursula.
The children spent a lot of time outside, which was fantastic, as the weather was amazing. They have been playing tennis, cricket, making obstacle courses, writing, racing the bikes, skipping, keeping score, creating in the mud kitchen and much, much more. I have spent time with each of the children 1:1 seeing what they could write independently, listening to them read and seeing if they could answer questions about what they had read. We also did some counting and other number activities. I'll carry on with this next week too, because I didn't get to work with everyone. We all did lots of phonics practise and tricky words. The common words / sounds that the children are struggling with are: z (forming it correctly), b and d, are, was, all and said.
We had a brilliant PE lesson with Mrs Hogg on Wednesday. The children were so amazingly well behaved and showed brilliant listening skills, balance, coordination and agility. It is all good practise for sports day which is coming up next half term.
We have been practising our songs for the Nursery Rhyme singing concert next week. The children seem to know the songs well. Most of them say "We did this at nursery!"
Earlier in the week our caterpillars went missing just like in the story "Christopher's Caterpillars", which we had been reading, so we decided to make 'lost' posters to put up around the school. The children thought that a robber might have them. We talked about stealing and how it was wrong. Finally the caterpillars came back. Apparently the fairy Trixie had been meddling again and had 'borrowed' them! Miss Whittleworth has told me that they have started to form chrysalides, which is very exciting. We may have some butterflies born next week!
So, once again I apologise for my absence at the end of this week. I haven't been able to mark the children's homework this week, but I will make up for it next week I promise.
Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
PS: If you haven't already logged into 'Tapestry', please have a look. If you are struggling let me know and I'll set it up for you. You can add comments and photos yourself, so it is a lovely way to share the children's learning.
Hi everyone,
What a beautiful week it's been! We have been able to really make the most of the weather and spent a lot of time learning outdoors this week. We have observed and measured how big our caterpillars have grown and we have drawn our own insects and written about them. We have made little flap books and read clues, so that we could match them up to the correct insect. Outside we have built with the podley large construction set, we have made boats for the insects to float on, we have drawn with chalk, investigated shells in the water tray, used the new skipping ropes, played team games, sung songs, danced, counted and practised our athletics skills in PE. In maths we have investigated symmetry. The children used a variety of different objects and resources to make reflective, symmetrical patterns. In phonics we have concentrated on the sounds 'or', 'll', 'ou' and 'oo' (look at a book).
It has been fantastic to be see you accessing Tapestry and making comments and even adding your own observations. Thank you.
For homework this week please see the grid, but if you feel that your child would benefit from something else ie: practising more reading / phonics games, maths and number activities or even just something of their own choice then that is absolutely fine. Please continue to listen to the children read regularly and comment in their books.
This week the children have yet again made me smile with pride, as their behaviour and attitude to learning is amazing. Thank you for all your support.
Kind Regards
Mrs Preece and Miss Whittleworth
